\ 


Immigration  and  Labor 


The  Economic  Aspects  of  European 
Immigration  to  the  United  States 


By 
Isaac  A.  Hourwich,  Ph.D. 


Second  Edition 
Revised 


New  York 
B.  W.  HUEBSCH, 

1922 


COPYRIGHT,  1912 

BY 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

COPYRIGHT.  1923 

BY 

ISAAC  A.  HOURWICH,  PH.D. 


Printed  by  Harper  &•  Brother* 
New  York 


PREFACE   TO   THE  SECOND  EDITION 

IMMIGRATION  is  treated  in  this  book  solely  as  an  eco- 
1  nomic  question.  In  this  the  author  followed  the  Immi- 
gration Commission,  which  was  created  by  Congress  in  1907, 
and  presented  its  report  in  1910.  He  was  not  unaware  of 
the  existence  of  a  sentiment  against  immigration,  based  upon 
other  than  economic  considerations.  Indeed,  most  of  the 
first  chapter,  and  a  part  of  the  third,  are  devoted  to  this 
aspect  of  the  question.  But  he  concurs  in  the  opinion  of  the 
experts  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  and  of  the  Com- 
mission on  Industrial  Relations,  that  the  objections  to  im- 
migration are  fundamentally  of  an  economic  nature^  Prior 
to  the  war,  the  only  real  power  behind  the  agitation  in  favor 
of  restriction  of  immigration  was  organized  labor.  Our 
statesmen  in  Washington  took  scant  notice  of  the  academic 
disquisitions  in  the  domains  of  anthropology,  ethnology, 
sociology,  eugenics,  and  political  science,  which  presented 
the  old  arguments  of  the  Know-Nothings  dressed  up  in  a 
modern  scientific  garb.  But  they  listened  to  union  officials 
who  proposed  to  reward  their  friends  and  punish  their 
enemies  on  election  "day.  Yet  the  opposition  of  labor  to 
immigration  was  outweighed  by  the  influence  of  capital, 
which  regarded  free  trade  in  the  labor  market  as  indispensable 
for  the  expansion  of  American  industry.  The  social  revolu- 
tion in  Russia  and  its  echoes  in  Hungary,  Germany,  and 
Italy,  as  well  as  the  growth  of  the  Socialist  and  Communist 
parties  in  all  European  countries,  have  aroused  a  fear  of 
immigration  among  American  capitalists.  Labor  and  capital 
now  united  in  the  demand  for  restrictive  legislation.  Or- 
ganized labor  favofta  "complete  exclusion  of  immigration, 
capital  favored  a  "selective \\test  meant  to  bar  all  immi- 

iii 


/V  tPr-efctce  to  the  Second  Edition 


'"  Bolshevism,"  which  is  a  comprehensive 
term  for  every  variety  of  economic  and  political  heresy.  A 
compromise  was  reached  by  the  passage  of  the  recent  immi- 
gration act,  supplemented  by  the  order  of  the  State  De- 
partment requiring  the  visaing  of  the  passports  of  all  in- 
tending immigrants  by  American  consuls  in  the  countries 
of  emigration.  Both  are  merely  emergency  measures,  and 
the  matter  will  again  be  before  Congress  at  its  regular 
session.  The  object  of  this  edition  is  to  aid  in  the  public 
discussion  of  this  question. 

The  first  edition  of  this  book  appeared  less  than  two  years 
before  the  World  War.  No  changes  in  the  structure  of 
society  manifest  themselves  within  two  years  under  ordinary 
conditions.  No  new  immigration  legislation  was  enacted 
during  that  time.  It  is,  therefore,  reasonable  to  assume  that 
the  normal  effects  of  immigration  on  the  eve  of  the  war 
were  the  same  as  at  the  time  when  this  book  was  first  pub- 
lished. The  outbreak  of  the  European  war  produced  a 
revolutionary  change.  As  an  ardent  advocate  of  restriction 
exultingly  put  it,  "the  war  did  to  immigration  what  all  the 
restrictionist  agitation  in  the  world  could  not  have  accom- 
plished —  it  stopped  it  altogether."1  Here  was  an  opportunity 
to  test  the  effects  of  the  cessation  of  immigration  upon  the 
condition  of  labor  in  the  United  States.  This  subject  is 
treated  in  the  new  chapter,  "The  Lessons  of  the  War," 
dealing  with  labor  conditions  during  the  late  war.  The 
forecast  of  the  probable  effects  of  restriction  of  immigration, 
which  was  the  concluding  chapter  of  the  first  edition,  has 
been  retained,  with  the  omission  of  the  discussion  of  some  of 
the  recommendations  of  the  Immigration  Commission  which 
are  now  out  of  date.  The  reader  is  thus  enabled  to  verify 
the  deductions  drawn  from  the  history  of  immigration  prior 
to  the  war,  by  the  experience  of  labor  during  a  period  without 
immigration.  The  new  chapter  may  serve  as  an  answer  to 
the  main  criticisms  of  the  first  edition. 
A  reviewer  in  The  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics  scouted 
1  Prof.  Henry  P.  Fairchild  in  The  New  York  Times  of  October  12,  1919. 


Preface  to  the  Second  Edition  v 

the  "elaborate  treatment  .  .  .  accorded  the  question  'has 
emigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  checked  emi 
gration  from  Northern  and  Western  Europe?'"  It  seemed 
to  him  that  "restrictionists  ...  who  plan  and  expect  a  re- 
vival of  the  older  immigration,  are  not  conspicuous."  Yet 
this  is  the  avowed  aim  of  the  3  per  cent  quota  of  the  immi- 
gration law  which  was  enacted  last  spring. 

A  detailed  analysis  of  the  points  raised  by  critics  will  be 
found  in  the  Appendix. 

ISAAC  A.  HOURWICH. 
NEW  YORK,  September  15,  1921. 


PREFACE   TO   THE   FIRST   EDITION 

THE  Immigration  Commission,  after  three  years  of 
investigation,  reached  the  conclusion  that  our  immi- 
gration policy  "should  be  based  primarily  upon  economic  or 
business  considerations." '  This  conclusion  has  determined 
the  scope  of  the  present  book:  it  treats  immigration  solely 
as  an  economic  question.  For  the  same  reason  the  dis- 
cussion is  confined  to  European  immigration,  Oriental 
immigration  being  viewed  by  many  students  primarily  as 
a  race  question,  which  reaches  out  beyond  the  domain  of 
economics. 

The  author  gratefully  acknowledges  his  indebtedness  to 
Mr.  William  W.  Bishop,  superintendent  of  the  Reading 
Room,  Library  of  Congress,  who  obligingly  placed  at  his 
disposal  the  exceptional  facilities  of  the  Library;  to  Mr. 
W.  W.  Husband,  secretary  of  the  Immigration  Commission, 
who  courteously  gave  him  access  to  the  proof  sheets  of  the 
reports  of  the  Commission,  in  advance  of  their  publication; 
and  to  the  young  men  and  women  who  assisted  him  in  the 

preparation  of  the  material  for  this  book. 

I.  A.  rl. 

WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  July  23,  1912- 


CONTENTS 
PART  I. 

SUMMARY  REVIEW. 

PACK 

Difference  between  the  old  and  the  new  immigration  quantitative, 

not  qualitative.         .....  ! 

Immigration  and  emigration  regulated  by  demand  for  labor  .         .        3 

The  myth  of  imported  immigrants 2 

Unemployment  the  result  of  industrial  maladjustment  .  .  4 
Unemployment  varies  inversely  with  immigration  .  .  .  5 
Limited  demand  for  immigrant  labor  in  agriculture  ...  7 
Effect  of  immigration  not  racial  displacement,  but  evolution  of 

an  English-speaking  aristocracy  of  labor    ....        9 
Causes  of  the  decrease  of  emigration  from  Northern  and  Western 

Europe 13 

Race  suicide  unrelated  to  immigration  .  .  .  .  .18 
Economic  reason  for  the  predominance  of  unskilled  laborers  among 

the  immigrants i£ 

The  standard  of  living  of  the  recent  immigrant  not  inferior  to  that 

of  his  predecessors 19 

Higher  standard  of  living  of  the  American  workman  maintained 

with  the  aid  of  his  children's  wages 22 

Native  workmen  and  older  immigrants  not  underbid  by  recent 

immigrants 23 

Employment  of  immigrants  in  large  numbers  going  together  with 

advances  in  wages 24^, 

Reduction  of  child  labor  in  States  with  a  large  immigrant  popu- 
lation.   Child  labor  a  substitute  for  immigration         .         .      26 

Reduction  of  the  workday 27 

Work  accidents  not  the  result  of  immigration  ....  29 
Immigration  and  trade-unionism.  Union  membership  rising  and 

falling  with  the  rise  and  fall  of  immigration  .      30 

Organization  among  the  unskilled 32 

Regulation  of  terms  of  employment  by  conferences  between  organ- 
ized capital  and  organized  labor         .  33 
vi  i 


J 


viii  Contents 

PAGE 

Immigration  not  the  cause  of  the  labor  problem  .  .  -34 
Restriction  of  immigration  no  relief  for  unemployment  .  .  35 
The  lesson  of  the  late  war;  decline  of  real  wages  amidst  industrial 

prosperity,  in  the  absence  of  immigration  .      36 

PART  II. 

TOPICAL  ANALYSIS. 
CHAPTER  I. 

STATEMENT  OF  THE   QUESTION. 

Objections  to  immigration 40 

Old  and  new  immigration 41 

What  is  "undesirable"  immigration 41 

The  problem  of  assimilation 42 

Restriction  of  competition  demanded  by  organized  labor    .         .  44 

Cosmopolitanism  and  the  theory  of  "seclusion  and  isolation"      .  45 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE   REPORT  OF  THE   IMMIGRATION  COMMISSION. 

Conclusions   of   the   Commission:    Immigration — an    economic 

problem 48' 

Defects  of  the  Report: 

Absence  of  a  historical  view 50 

Lack  of  statistical  evidence  to  support  its  conclusions  .  51 

Race  distinction  the  dominant  idea  of  the  investigation        .  55 
Deceptive  statistical  generalizations  .         .      i  .        .         .58 

CHAPTER  III.  k 

OLD  AND  NEW  IMMIGRATION. 

The  immigrant  of  bygone  days  as  popularly  pictured  „  .  61 
The  bulk  of  immigrants  a  century  ago  indentured  servants  .  62 
Destitution  of  the  free  immigrants  before  the  era  of  the  "new 

immigration" 63 

Congestion  in  the  settlements  of  past   generations  of  immi- 
grants in  New  York  City  .         .-  .         .         .65 
Aversion    of   the    early   Irish   immigrants   to   employment   in 

farming 67 


Contents 


IX 


PACK 

Majority  of  the  old  immigration  unskilled  laborers  ...  67 
Percentage  of  skilled  mechanics  about  the  same  for  the  last 

half  century 69 

No  evidence  of  a  lowered  standard  of  immigration  ...  69 
The  average  immigrant  intellectually  above  the  average  of  his 

countrymen  at  home 70 

Social  prejudice  against  immigrants  in  the  past  •  •  •  73 

The  "bird  of  passage" .74 

The  problem  of  assimilation  . 75 

Opposition  of  organized  labor  antedates  the  "new  immigration"  78 

Note:  The  Statistics  of  Italian  Illiteracy.^,  80 

CHAPTER/IV^  1r 

f   IMMIGRATION  AND  THE  LABOR  MARKET. 

Demand  for  labor  increasing  faster  than  population  ...  82 

Immigration  follows  business  conditions 86 

How  the  volume  of  immigration  is  regulated     ....  93 

Importation  of  contract  laborers  infrequent       ....  99 

Character  of  immigration  determined  by  demand  for  labor          .  101 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE  DEMAND  FOR  LABOR  IN  AGRICULTURE. 

Relative  and  absolute  decrease  of  the  rural  population  .  .103 
Migration  of  Americans  of  native  stock  to  the  city  .  .  .104 
Comparative  demand  for  labor  in  agriculture  and  industry  .  104 
Differentiation  of  manufacturing  from  farming  .  .  .106 

Centralization  of  industry  and  its  effect  upon  farming        .         .107 

Introduction  of  labor-saving  machinery 108 

Displacement  of  the  wage-earner IO9 

Low  wages    .         .         .         . no 

Long  hours IIQ 

Limits  to  further  growth  of  agricultural  population    .        .        .112 

CHAPTER  VI. 

UNEMPLOYMENT. 

A.    The  Causes  of  Unemployment. 

Unemployment  not  the  result  of  over-population         .         .     "4 
Differentiation  of  manufacturing  from  farming  leads  to  un- 
employment     .         .         •         •        •        •        •        •     1*4 


x  Contents 

PAGE 

Seasonal  trade  variations 115 

Lack  of  mobility  of  skilled  labor 117 

Cyclical  fluctuations  of  employment 121 

Dissipation  of  the  demand  for  labor 121 

The  labor  reserve 124 

B.     Unemployment  and  Immigration. 

Native  and  foreign-born  workmen  equally  affected  by  un- 
employment        125 

Unemployment  is  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  relative  number  of 

foreign-born 128 

Annual  variations  of  the  relative  number  unemployed           .  137 
Annual  variations  of  the  number  of  working  days        .         .140 

Immigration  not  a  contributory  cause  of  unemployment       .  145 

A  remedy  against  unemployment 146 

CHAPTER  VII. 

RACIAL   STRATIFICATION. 

Migratory  character  of  the  population  of  the  United  States  .  148 
Industrial  growth  of  the  country  west  of  the  Atlantic  Seaboard 

States 150 

Adjustment  of  native  and  foreign  elements  on  the  scale  of 

occupations 150 

Actual  displacement  of  American  wage-earners  by  immigrants  a 

rare  exception          ........     151 

Extraordinary  expansion  of  the  iron  and  steel  industry.  Native 

Americans  employed  in  increased  numbers  since  immigration 

from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  has  become  conspicuous.  158 
Economic  opportunity  for  the  advancement  of  English-speaking 

wage-earners  created  by  immigration  .  .  .  .161 
"Racial  displacement"  a  negligible  quantity  .  '  .  .  .165 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

EMIGRATION  FROM  NORTHERN   AND  WESTERN  EUROPE. 

A.  Introductory:    Emigration    from    Northern  and    Western 
Europe  cannot  keep  pace  with  the  demand  for  immigrant 
labor  in  the  United  States          ...  .177 

B.  Germany. 

Excess  of  immigration  to,  over  emigration  from  Germany     .     180 
Sources  of  immigration  to  Germany:  Southern  and  Eastern 

Europe 181 


Contents  xi 

PAGE 

Industrial  expansion j82 

Increased  demand  for  labor       .         .  .         .         .185 

Improvement  of  the  condition  of  labor       .        .        .        .185 

Progress  of  labor  legislation     .         .         .        .        .        .188 

Agricultural  progress.    Advance  in  the  wages  of  farm  labor.     189 
Co-operation  .........     191 

Effects  of  the  repeal,  in  1890,  of  the  exceptional  laws  of 

1878 191 

Immigration  of  German  unskilled  laborers  to  the  United 
States  has  increased  with  the  increasing  tide  of  immi- 
gration from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  .  .  .  192 

C.  The  Scandinavians. 

Immigration  of  Scandinavian  breadwinners  to  the  United 

States  highest  in  1901-1910 196 

Scandinavians  seeking  employment  in  competition  with  im- 
migrants from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  .  .  198 

D.  Norway. 

Total  number  of  Norwegian  immigrants  highest  in  1901-1910    202 
Recent  industrial  development  of  Norway  .        .        .    202 

E.  Denmark. 

Conditions  of  the  Danish  peasants  greatly  improved  since 

theSo's.    Success  of  agricultural  co-operation        .         .     203 

Polish  migration  to  Denmark 204 

Progress  of  the  manufacturing  industry.    Strong  organization 

oflabor 204 

P.    Sweden. 

Cause  of  the  decline  of  emigration  from  rural  districts:  Small 

demand  for  farm  help  in  the  United  States  .        .  205 

Immigration  to  Sweden 206 

Recent  industrial  development 207 

Progress  of  organized  labor 208 

G.     The  United  Kingdom. 

Development  of  the  British  colonies  drawing  immigrants  from 

the  mother  country 209 

Effect  of  colonial  restriction  of  foreign  immigration          .    210 
Encouragement  of  immigration  of  British  subjects  by  the 

Canadian  and  the  Australian  Governments         .         .210 
Emigration  from  the  British  Isles  to  the  United  States  in 

1880-1909  not  below  normal.    Rising  tide  in  1898-1907 .     211 
Improvement  of  living  conditions  in  Great  Britain       .        .    2i4 


xii  Contents 

FAGB 

H.    Ireland. 

Emigration  from  Ireland  decreasing  since  1860    .         .         .215 

Effects  of  land  reform 217 

Welfare  work  of  the  country  governments  .         .         .         .218 
The  co-operative  movement      .         .         .         .         .         .218 

Rise  in  wages  of  farm  laborers 218 

Improvement  of  the  condition  of  the  people        .         .         .219 

/.  Conclusion:  Immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe 
could  not  be  replaced  by  immigration  from  Northern  and 
Western  Europe 220 

CHAPTER  IX. 

RACE  SUICIDE. 

General  Walker's  explanation  of  the  decline  in  the  native  birth- 
rate: Native  stock  replaced  by  immigration          .         .         .221 
Decline  of  the  birth-rate  begins  in  1810-1830    ....     223 

A  world-wide  phenomenon 224 

Race  suicide  universal  among  social  classes  not  affected  by  im- 
migrant competition 224 

CHAPTER  X. 

THE  STANDARD  OF  LIVING. 

A.  Introductory:  The    subject   of   inquiry — comparative  stand- 

ards of  unskilled  laborers,  past  and  present        .         .         .     228 

B.  Congestion  in  New  York  City. 

Overcrowding  and  filth  in  the  first  half  of  the  past  century  .  229 
Squalid  rooms  of  native  American  sewing  women         .         .231 

The  shanty  dwellers  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  231 

The  Irish  and  German  colonies  in  the  60 's          .         .         .  232 
Improved  conditions  of  the  Jewish  and  Italian  districts  of 

our  day 234 

Industrial  causes  of  congestion 235 

Effect  of  congestion  upon  cost  of  living  and  wages       .         .  240 

C.  Housing  Conditions  in  the  Country  at  Large. 

Housing  conditions  of  New  England  working  girls  in  the  40*3 .     241 
Filthy  and  unsanitary  tenements  in  Boston  in  the  days  of  the 

old  immigration  .  .  .  —  .  .  .  .241 
The  same  conditions  in  smaller  towns  ....  243 
Shanty  dwellers  in  Massachusetts 244 


Contents  xiii 

PACK 

Comparison  with  housing  conditions  in  Ireland  .  .  245 

Housing  conditions  of  native  white  unskilled  laborers  in 

Southern  mill  towns  ......  246 

Cause  of  bad  housing  conditions  economic,  not  racial  .  .  247 
Responsibility  of  the  landlords  .  .  .  .  .  247 

Company  houses 248 

Tendency  of  the  Immigration  Commission  to  shift  the  blame 

to  the  tenant    ........    249 

Fallacy  of  the  race  classification  adopted  by  the  Commission .  250 
Rental  paid  by  immigrants  as  high  as,  or  higher  than,  that 

paid  by  native  wage-earners  .  .  .  .  .  250 
Native  American  wage-earners  in  small  towns  with  low  rents 

able  to  underbid  the  immigrant  workers  of  large  cities 

with  high  rents 255 

D.  Food:  Existence  of  a  race  standard  of  living  not  proved       .    256 

E.  Clothing. 

Prices  paid  by  recent  immigrants  the  same  as  those  paid  by 

native  Americans       .......     265 

Race  variations  insignificant 266 

F.  Savings. 

Small  margin  of  income  left  for  savings  .  .  .  ..  267 
American  wage-earners  not  injured  by  the  investments  of 

immigrants  in  their  home  countries      ....  269 

The  Mercantilist  objection  to  the  exportation  of  money      .  271 


CHAPTER  XL 

HOME  OWNERSHIP. 

Point  of  view  of  the  Immigration  Commission  not  that  of  the 

wage-earner 274 

Irregularity  of  employment  a  bar  to  home  ownership          .        .    274 

Handicap  in  labor  disputes      .  276 

Tenancy  in  Boston  in  1790,  1845,  1890,  and  1900      .         .^        .    276 
Native  home  owners  before  the  period   of   the  "new  immi- 
gration"           

Home  ownership  decreasing  with  the  increase  of  land  values        .     278 
Immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  not  long  enough 

in  the  United  States  to  have  acquired  homes 
Tenancy  increasing  with  the  growth  of  urban  population    .        .    282 


xiv  Contents 

CHAPTER  XII. 

EFFECT  OF  IMMIGRATION  ON  WAGES. 

PAGE 

Difference  in  wages  due  to  grade  of  service,  not  to  country  of 

birth 284 

Native  American  and  Americanized  families  maintain  a  higher 

standard  with  the  aid  of  children's  earnings         .         .         .  285 
Recently -landed  immigrants  not  engaged  at  less  than  the  prevail- 
ing rates  of  wages 285 

Machinery  and  immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  28$ 

Defects  of  wage  statistics         .         .  .         .         .         .  292 

Wages  in  urban  and  rural  manufactures:  Country  competition 

of  native  Americans  tends  to  lower  the  wages  of  immigrants  297 

Rates  of  wages  not  affected  by  immigration       ....  299 

Increase  of  wages  result  of  industrial  expansion          .         .         .  302 

Wages  of  railroad  employees 302 

Low  salaries  of  clerical  help 304 

Wages  in  coal  mines  and  steel  mills 305 

What  would  have  been  the  increase  of  wages  without  immigration 

from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe?  ....  306 

Wages  of  older  employees  kept  up  by  immigration  from  Southern 

and  Eastern  Europe .  309 

x  CHAPTER  XIII. 

HOURS   OF  LABOR. 

Hours  of  labor  of  native  American  mill  hands  in  the  ante-immi- 
gration period 311 

Reduction  of  hours  contemporaneous  with  immigration         .         .     313 
Foreign  unskilled  laborers  in  the  steel  industry  working  shorter 
hours  than  English-speaking  skilled  and  semi-skilled  em- 
ployees   314 

Reduction  of  the  working  day  in  the  cotton  mills       .         .         .315 
Comparative  reduction  of  hours  in  New  York  City  and  in  the 

remainder  of  New  York  State,  1901-1910  ....     315 

CHAPTER  XIV.  * 

CHILD  LABOR. 

Child  labor  in  the  early  days  of  the  factory  system    .         .         .     318 
Decrease  in  the  employment  of  children  contemporaneous  with  in- 
crease of  immigration 318 


Contents  xv 


PAGE 


Employment  of  children  in  the  South  relatively  greater  than  in 

States  with  a  large  immigrant  population  .         .         .         .319 
Child  labor  in  rural  Missouri 322 

CHAPTER  XV.    f 

LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS. 

Conclusions  of  the  Immigration  Commission  contradicted  by  its 
statistics:  Trade  union  affiliation  of  Jewish  and  Italian  cloth- 
ing workers  in  New  York  City  above  the  average  for  the 

wage-earners  of  the  country  at  large 325 

Membership  in  labor  unions  unaffected  by  race          .         .         .     326 
Organization  among  immigrants  from  Southern  and   Eastern 
Europe  as  strong  as  among  natives  and  immigrants  from 

Northern  and  Western  Europe 327 

Labor  unions  previous  to  1880  ephemeral          ....    329 
Greatest  progress  coincides  with  the  great  tide  of  immigration  of 

the  last  decade 330 

Union  membership  in  New  York  State  rising  and  falling  with 

rise  and  fall  of  immigration 335 

Trade-unionism  stronger  in  New  York  than  in  Kansas  with  its 

decreasing  foreign-born  population 337 

Trade  unions  stronger  in  New  York  City  than  in  the  remainder 

of  the  State .        .        .341 

Strikes  increasing  with  immigration 343 

Trade  unions  mostly  confined  to  skilled  crafts.    Unskilled  laborers 

not  eligible  for  membership  in  craft  unions          .         .         .     346 
Discrimination  against  immigrants  .         .         .         .         .         .     347 

Conflicting  interests  of  the  skilled  and  the  unskilled  .         .         -347 

Example  of  the  Lawrence  strike 34^ 

Possibilities  of  organization  among  the  unskilled        .         .         .     349 
Home  training  of  immigrants  in  organization     .    r  .     .  .     349 

Effect  of  machinery  upon  craft  unions 35 1 

Trusts  against  unions •        •        •    352 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

PAUPERISM  AND  CRIME. 

A.  Introductory:  The  period  of  the  greatest  immigration  at- 

tended by  a  decrease  of  pauperism  and  crime       .        .     353 

B.  Pauperism. 

Pauperism  less  frequent  among  the  new  immigration  than 

among  the  old.  .         •         •         •         •         •         •     354 


xvi  Contents 

Difference  not  due  to  "racial  displacement. " 
Pauperism  the  result  of  industrial  invalidism 
C.     Crime. 

Supposed   criminal   proclivities  of  the  foreigner:   Popular 

prejudice  unfounded  •  ... 

Increase  of  immigration  coincident  with  decrease  of  crime. 

PART  III. 
IMMIGRANTS  IN  THE  LEADING  INDUSTRIES. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE  GARMENT  WORKERS. 

Origin  of  the  sweating  system  antedates  immigration 

Real  wages  of  sewing  women  of  past  generations  lower  than 

to-day.     Long  hours  in  the  past 

Competition  of  farm-house  labor  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 

century  .  .... 

Expansion  of  the  clothing  industry  the  result  of  immigration 
Introduction  of  the  factory  system  followed  by  increase  of  wages. 
Rates  of  wages  not  influenced  by  racial  factors 
Earnings  of  recent  immigrant  women  higher  than  those  of  native 

Americans       .  . 

American  garment  workers  in  the  country  accepting  a  lower  rate  of 

wages  than  Jewish  city  workers         .... 
Organization  among  clothing  workers  more  effective  than  among 

other  industrial  workers  in  the  United  States 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE  COTTON  MILLS. 

Wages  in  1875-1908:  intermittent  advances  and  reductions  prior 
to  the  "new  immigration";  upward  movement  since. 

Effect  of  immigration  on  organization  of  labor  .... 

No  competition  between  union  labor  and  unorganized  immigrants. 
In  labor  contests  immigrants  have  supported  the  unions. 

Competition  of  the  Southern  mills:  Cheap  white  labor  of  the 
South  keeping  down  the  wages  of  immigrants  in  the  North. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE  WOOLEN  MILLS. 
The  Lawrence  strike  and  public  opinion   .        .         . 


Contents  xvii 


MM! 

Native  Americans  left  the  woolen  mills  before  1880, — not  forced 

out  by  recent  immigrants.         .         .         .         .  ,gs 

Americans  of  native  stock  coming  back  to  the  mills  since  the 

arrival  of  the  new  immigrants 386 

Recent  expansion  of  the  woolen  industry 387 

Wages  stationary  prior  to  the  new  immigration,  increasing  since. 
Wages  of  unskilled  laborers  increased  at  a  higher  rate  than 
those  of  skilled  operatives          .         .         .         .         .         .     388 

Tales  of  induced  immigration  unconfirmed         ....     390 

Strike  record  of  English-speaking  operatives  exceeded  by  recent 

immigrants     .'  ^ .        .    392 

CHAPTER  XX. 

THE  IRON  AND  STEEL  WORKERS. 

The  "princes  of  labor"  and  the  "white  coolies."        .         .         .    394 
No  "crowding  out "  of  English-speaking  workmen  by  immigrants .     395 
Highly  paid  men  a  small  fraction  of  the  force  in  the  past,  as  in 

the  present      .         .         .         .         .         .         .  .     395 

Wages  of  unskilled  laborers  rising     .         .         .  .         .     397 

Technical  revolution  in  the  iron  and  steel  industry     .         .         .     398 
Retention  of  skilled  men  conditioned  upon  the  employment  of  in- 
creasing numbers  of  unskilled  laborers        ....     400 

New  immigrants  not  working  for  less  pay  than  natives  or  older 

immigrants 401 

Wages  in  the  iron  and  steel  industry  vary  directly  as  the  ratio  of 

recent  immigrants .         .401 

Sunday  work  and  long  hours  the  general  rule  long  before  the  period 
of  the  "new  immigration."    Demand  of  employers  for  an 
eight-hour  day  in  the  8o's  resisted  by  organized  skilled  iron   v 
and  steel  workers.    Piece-workers  firm  for  a  twelve-hour  day .     409 
The  Amalgamated  Association  a  union  of  skilled  workers  only. 

Common  laborers  barred  from  membership  .         .         .     411 

Decline  of  the  organization  due  to  substitution  of  machinery  for 

skill \     4« 

Attempt  of  recent  immigrants  to  organize  along  industrial  lines.    413 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

THE  COAL  MINERS. 

The  "racial  displacement"  theory  of  the  Immigration  Com- 
mission .......•••  4*4 

Opening  of  new  mining  fields  the  real  cause  of  the  westward  move- 
ment of  coal  miners.  .  ...  •  •  •  4*6 


xviii  Contents 

PAGE 

Advancement  of  experienced  miners 421 

Other  avenues  opened  by  the  general  expansion  of  industry         .     422 
Caste  prejudice  against  the  immigrant  the  outgrowth  of  occupa- 
tional stratification 424 

Displacement  of  the  pick-miner  by  the  mining  machine:  employ- 
ment of  unskilled  immigrants  the  effect,  not  the  cause,  of  the 

introduction  of  mining  machines 425 

Fluctuations  in  the  demand  for  coal 432 

Part-time  employment  in  lieu  of  unemployment  .  .  .  434 
The  migratory  worker  the  product,  not  the  cause,  of  irregularity 

of  employment 435 

Average  number  of  days  per  man  has  increased  with  recent  immi- 
gration  436 

Rise  in  wages 438 

The  company  house  and  the  company  store  as  old  as  the  coal- 
mining industry  .  443 

History  of  the  miners'  unions  in  the  bituminous  coal  fields.         .     445 
Biennial  conferences  between  the  mine  operators  and  the  United 

Mine  Workers  in  the  bituminous  coal  fields         .         .         .     447 
Competition  of  unorganized  Americans  of  native  stock       .         .     447 
Southern  and  Eastern  European  immigrants  affiliated  with  miners' 

organizations  since  the  early  8o's;  have  joined  in  every  strike .     449 
Violence  in  strikes  not  a  special  characteristic  of  the  recent  immi- 
grants    ..........     450 

Failure  of  the  organization  in  West  Virginia  and  the  Southern 

fields  not  due  to  immigration 451 

The  language  question  solved  in  practice 452 

Recognition  of  the  union  by  the  Steel  Trust  ....  453 
Miners'  unions  in  the  anthracite  fields  short-lived  prior  to  1897.  454 
Capacity  of  Slavs  for  compact  organization  ....  455 
The  strike  of  1902:  significance  of  the  award  of  the  Anthracite 

Coal  Strike  Commission 456 

CHAPTER  XXII.     f 

WORK  ACCIDENTS. 

Work  accidents  attributed  to  recent  immigration.  An  adaptation 

of  the  common-law  theory  of  liability  for  accidents  .  .  458 

Competition  among  coal  operators  the  primary  cause  of  waste  of 

life  in  coal  mines 462 

Majority  of  accidents  preventable  by  mining  legislation  and 

efficient  inspection  of  coal  mines  ^  468 

Misleading  comparisons  between  English-speaking  and  non- 
English-speaking  employees 471 


Contents 


XIX 


Decrease  of  the  accident  rate  in  anthracite  coal  mines  .  473 
Increase  of  the  fatal  accident  rate  in  bituminous  mines  explained 

by  their  gradual  exhaustion  ....  4go 
"Negligence"  of  the  miners,— psychological  effect  of  mine 

accidents 48o 

Speeding  the  cause  of  "carelessness"  in  the  steel  mills  .  .  481 

"Assumption  of  risk"  by  the  new  immigrants  ....  482 

Accident  rates  in  coal  mines  and  on  railroads  compared  .  .  483 
Statistics  of  strikes  against  dangerous  working  conditions  in  the 

United  States  .         .  485 


PART  IV. 

CONCLUSION. 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

PROBABLE   EFFECTS  OF  RESTRICTION — A  FORECAST. 

Plan  to  improve  the  condition  of  labor  by  checking  the  develop- 
ment of  industry 487 

Unemployment  can  not  be  reduced  by  restriction  of  immigration.  488 
Scarcity  of  labor  not   necessarily  followed  by  scarcity  wages: 

agricultural  labor  as  an  illustration 489 

Labor-saving  machinery  as  a  substitute  for  immigration     .         .  490 

Farmers  and  agricultural  laborers  as  a  labor  reserve  .         .         .  490 

Extension  of  child  labor  as  a  possibility 490 

Further  depopulation  of  rural  districts  must  increase  the  cost  of 

living      ..........  491 

Emigration  and  capital 491 

Effects  of  a  slow  expansion  of  industry 492 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

THE    LESSONS   OF    THE    WAR. 

Decline  of  immigration 493 

"Salutary  effects"  predicted  by  the  Commission  on  Industrial 

Relations 493 

Growth  of  manufactures,  mining,  and  transportation  .  .  494 

Enormous  profits 495 

Shortage  of  labor    ....  ..498 

Importation  of  Mexican  peons  permitted  by  the  Department  of 

Labor                                                .        .        •        .        .  499 


xx  Contents 

Mobility  of  labor 499 

Scholastic  theory  of  wages 500 

Decline  of  the  purchasing  power  of  wages          ....  500 

Increase  of  the  proportion  of  malnourished  children   .         .         .  504 

Increase  in  the  number  of  strikes      ......  505 

Collective  bargaining,  encouraged  by  the  government  .  .  505 

Foreign-born  workers  not  responsible  for  decline  in  real  wages  .  506 

Movement  of  labor  from  the  farms  to  the  factories  .  .  .  506 
Agricultural  production  stationary,  exports  and  prices  of  farm 

products  increasing           .......  506 

Migration  of  Negroes  from  the  South  to  the  North,  as  a  substitute 

for  immigration        .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  507 

Increased  employment  of  women  and  children  ....  508 

American  capital  seeking  investment  in  Europe  .  .  .510 

Monopolistic  price  control 510 

Restriction  of  immigration  no  remedy 511 

APPENDIX 

In  answer  to  critics          .         .        , 515 

Note.    Importation  of  Mexican  contract-laborers       .         .         .  530 

Statistical  Tables    .         ..         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  531 

Alphabetical  Index 561 


LIST  OF  TABLES 

TABLE 

1.  Per  cent  who  speak  English,  by  years,  in  the  United  States.      58 

2.  Per  cent  distribution  of  immigrants  by  occupations:   1861- 

1910 67 

3.  Ratio  of  laborers  to  immigrant  breadwinners     ...      68 

4.  Per  cent  of  illiteracy  among  the  population  of  Russia,  Bul- 

garia, Servia,  and  Greece,  and  among  the  immigrants 
from  the  same  countries 71 

5.  Visits  abroad  made  by  foreign-born  employees  in  iron  and 

steel  mills,  by  races 75 

6.  Per  cent  of  Polish  and  German  employees  of  packing  houses 

in  Kansas  City,  and  their  foreign-born  children  six  years 
of  age  or  over,  who  speak  English,  by  years  in  the 
United  States .  .78 

7.  Immigration  from  Europe  compared  with  increase  of  popu- 

lation born  in  Europe       .         .         .         .         .         .88 

8.  Movement  of  third-class  passengers  between  the  United 

States  and  European  ports,  1899  to  1909          .         .  90 

9.  Average  monthly  immigration  and  emigration,  1907-1909    .  92 
10.  Immigrants'  connections  in  the  United  States     ...  94 
n.  Assisted  immigration       .......  96 

12.  Population  and  immigration 101 

13.  Decrease  of  the  population  of  rural  territory,  1900-1910      .     104 

14.  Average  annual  earnings  of  farm  laborers  in  Kansas,  com- 

pared with  earnings  in  similar  non-agricultural  occupa- 
tions in  the  same  state,  1900 m- 

15.  Distribution  of  white  male  laborers,  employed  in  agriculture 

and  other  pursuits  in  California,  by  rates  of  wages  per 
week  (without  board),  1906  .  .  .  .  .  in 

1 6.  Range  of  fluctuations  of  employment,  1899  and  1904  .         .     123 

17.  Per  cent  distribution  of  native  and  foreign-born  male  iron 

and  steel  workers  sixteen  years  of  age  and  over,  by  num- 
ber of  months  of  employment  .  .  .  127 

1 8.  Comparative  percentages  of  unemployed  and  of  foreign-born 

breadwinners,  by  geographical  divisions,  1900      .         .128 

19.  Greatest  and  least  number  of  male  wage-earners  employed  in 

manufactures  during  any  one  month  of  the  year  1899, 
greatest  number  of  unemployed,  and  percentage  of 
foreign-born  males  engaged  in  manufactures  and  me- 
chanical pursuits  in  1900,  by  groups  of  states  .  .13° 


xxii  Contents 

TABLE  PAGB 

20.  Greatest  and  least  number  of  female  wage-earners  employed 

in  manufactures  during  any  one  month  of  the  year  1899, 
greatest  number  of  unemployed,  and  percentage  of 
foreign-born  females  engaged  in  manufactures  and  me- 
chanical pursuits,  in  1900,  by  groups  of  states  .  .131 

21.  Laborers  (male),  foreign-born,  and  unemployed,  1900  .     136 

22.  Cotton-mill   operatives    (male),   foreign-born,    and   unem- 

ployed, 1900 136 

23.  Ratio  of  unemployment  in  Massachusetts,  1888-1908  .     138 

24.  Average  number  of  days  worked  in  bituminous  coal  mines 

of  Pennsylvania,  average  production  per  employee  per 
day  worked,  and  number  of  immigrant  miners  and 
laborers  destined  for  Pennsylvania,  1901-1909  .  .  140 

25.  Average  number  of  wage-earners  employed  in  manufactures, 

1879-1909    .  ....  151 

26.  Per  cent  distribution  of  male  breadwinners  twenty-one  years 

of  age  and  over,  by  nativity  and  class  of  occupations,  1 900     151 

27.  Occupations  in  which  the  number  of  native-born  decreased, 

1890-1900 152 

28.  Decrease  from  all  causes,  compared  with  loss  by  death  among 

native  white  males  of  native  parentage,  in  selected  oc- 
cupations, 1890-1900 153 

29.  Increase  of  the  number  of  laborers  in  the  United  States,  clas- 

sified by  race  and  nativity,  1890-1900       .         .         .156 

30.  Increase  of  the  number  of  miners  in  the  United  States,  clas- 

sified by  nativity,  1890-1900    .          .         .         .         .157 

31.  Decrease  of  the  number  of  native  white  miners,  1890-1900  .     158 

32.  Number  of  iron  and  steel  workers  in  the  United  States,  by 

race  and  nativity,  1880,  1890,  and  1900       .         .         .159 

33.  Increase  of  the  number  of  iron  and  steel  workers  in  the  prin- 

cipal cities  of  the  Middle  West,  by  race  and  nativity, 
1890-1900 160 

34.  Number  and  per  cent  of  skilled  and  unskilled  laborers  in  one 

iron  and  steel  concern,  1907      .         .         .          .         .162 

35.  Number  of  English,  Welsh,  Irish,  and  German  male  bread- 

winners, 1890  and  1900    ......     166 

36.  Shifiing  of  English  and  Welsh  male  breadwinners  in  selected 

occupations,  1890-1900 168 

37.  Shifting  of  Irish  male  breadwinners  in  selected  occupations, 

1890-1900 169 

38.  Shifting  of  German  male  breadwinners  in  selected  occupa- 

tions, 1890-1900       .         .         .  —    .         .         .         .170 

39.  Principal  nationalities  of  male  breadwinners  classified  by 

occupation  groups  (per  cent),  1900  .        .        .        .171 


Contents  xxiii 

TABLE  pA 

40.  Per  cent  distribution  of  foreign-born  male  breadwinners  ac- 

cording to  nationality  and  grade  of  occupation,  1900     .     172 

41.  Increase  and  decrease  of  the  number  of  breadwinners  in 

Massachusetts  classified  by  sex,  nativity,  and  occupa- 
tion groups,  1900-1905 I74 

42.  Specified  occupations  in  Massachusetts  with  a  decreasing 

number  of  native  breadwinners,  classified  by  sex  and 
nativity,  1900-1905 I75 

43.  Foreign-born  population  of  Germany,  net  emigration  and 

net  immigration !go 

44.  Migration  of  workers  from  Russian  Poland  to  Germany  for 

temporary  employment,  1890-1904    .         .         .         .181 

45.  Comparative  growth  of  railroad  mileage  and  freight  traffic  in 

Germany  and  the  United  States,  1890-1900        .  .183 

46.  Per  cent  increase  of  the  population  of  Germany  and  of  the 

number  of  breadwinners  in  trade  and  manufactures, 
1882-1907^ 185 

47.  Average  annual^earnings  in  Prussian  coal  mines,  1890-1910  .    186 

48.  Membership  of  trade-unions  in  Germany,  1890-1900  .         .187 

49.  Progress  of  organization  among  female  wage-earners,  in  Ger- 

many, 1895-1910 188 

50.  Comparative  summary  of  the  principal  expenses  of  the 

national  organizations  affiliated  with  the  "General  Com- 
mission of  the  Trade-Unions  of  Germany,"  1895-1910  .     189 

51.  Agricultural  progress  in  Germany,  1895-1909     .         .         .190 

52.  Co-operative  associations  in  Germany,  1903-1908       .         .     191 

53.  Annual  average  immigration  from  Germany,  1875-1910       .     192 

54.  Emigration  from  Germany  to  all  countries  outside  the 

United  States,  1890-1904 194 

55.  Scandinavian  immigration  to  the  United  States,  1881-1910  .     196 

56.  Increase  of  foreign  born  from  the  Scandinavian  countries  and 

from  Eastern  and  Southern  Europe,  1880-1910,  by  geo- 
graphic divisions       ....  .     199 

57.  Distribution  of  Scandinavian  immigrant  breadwinners  by 

main  classes  of  occupations,  1881-1910       .         .         .  201 

58.  Immigration  from  Norway  to  the  United  States          .         .  202 

59.  Immigration  from  Denmark  to  the  United  States,  1820-1910  203 

60.  Annual  average  emigration  from  Sweden  by  destination, 

1861-1908 .205 

61.  Average  annual  emigration  from  cities  and  rural  districts  of 

Sweden,  1881-1907 206 

62.  Annual  average  emigration  from  Sweden  to  other  European 

countries,  and  immigration  to  Sweden  from  other  Euro- 
pean countries,  1881-1908        .....    207 


xxiv  Contents 

TABLE  PAGE 

63.  Per  cent  of  wage-earners  employed  under  the  system  of  col- 

lective bargaining  in  the  principal  industries  of 
Sweden  ........  209 

64.  Number  of  emigrants  from  the  United  Kingdom  by  destina- 

tion, 1840-1909 212 

65.  Net  emigration  of  British  subjects  from  the  United  Kingdom 

by  countries  of  destination,  1895-1909         .         .         .210 

66.  Average  real  wages  in  Great  Britain,  1850-1900  .         .         .215 

67.  Annual  average  emigration  from  Ireland,  May  I,  1851,  to 

March  31,  1908        .......     216 

68.  Annual  average  emigration  from  Ireland  by  destination, 

1876-1908         .         . 217 

69.  Families  occupying  each  class  of  inhabited  houses  in  rural 

areas  of  Ireland,  1861-1901       .....     219 

70.  Per  cent  ratio  of  native  white  children  under  five  years  of 

age,  born  of  native  mothers,  to  native  white  females, 
fifteen  to  forty-four  years  of  age,  in  cities  of  less  than 
25,000  inhabitants  and  rural  territory,  and  per  cent  ratio 
of  native  white  male  farmers,  planters,  and  overseers, 
to  the  total  number  of  white  male  breadwinners,  1900, 
by  areas  comprising  states  and  territories  grouped  ac- 
cording to  ratio  of  children,  1900  ....  225 

71.  Per  cent  distribution  of  the  families  of  Boston  according  to 

number  of  families  per  house,  1855  and  1900    .          .     242 

72.  Number  of  tenements  of  one  room  occupied  by  three  or  more 

persons,  1901  ........     245 

73.  Per  cent  of  families  keeping  boarders  or  lodgers  among  the 

races  of  the  old  immigration 252 

74.  Per  cent  of  foreign-born  families  in  which  wife  has  employ- 

ment or  keeps  boarders  or  lodgers,  by  yearly  earnings 

of  husband      .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .     253 

75.  Average  annual  rent  per  family  and  per  individual  in  normal 

families,  by  nativity,  in  Northern  states    .         .         .     254 

76.  Annual  rent  per  family  and  per  individual  in  normal  families, 

by  nativity  of  head  of  family     .....     255 

77.  Average  expenditure  per  man  per  day  of  selected  families  or 

South  Italian  and  native  white  workers  in  the  iron  and 
steel  district  of  the  South  .  .  .  .258 

78.  Average  food  expenditures  per  man  per  day,  by  income  and 

nationality 260-261 

79.  Expenditures  for  food  in  normal  families  with  an  income 

from  $400  to  $700,  classified  by  nativity  and  income     .      262 

80.  Expenditure  for  clothing  in  normal  families  of  unskilled 

laborers,  classified  by  income  and  nativity         .         .     267 


Contents  xxv 

TABLE  pACB 

81.  Surplus  of  income  over  expenditure  of  normal  families,  clas- 

sified by  country  of  birth 268 

82.  Per  cent  of  home-owners  in  the  population  of  Boston,  1845- 

1900        .  377 

83.  Percentage  of  native  white  home-owners  to  all  occupants, 

classified  by  parent  nativity,  in  cities  with  a  population 

of  50,000  and  over  . 278 

84.  Percentages  of  home-owners  classified  by  value  of  homes,  1 890    278 

85.  Home  ownership  and  value  of  real  estate  in  areas,  with  ratio 

of  home-owners  to  total  families  above  and  below  the 
average,  1890  .  .  .' 279 

86.  Number  of  houses  and  apartments  advertised  for  rent  to 

white  tenants  in  Washington,  D.  C.,  on  the  last  Satur- 
day in  July,  1900  and  1910  282 

87.  Average  annual  deficit  per  working  family  in  Ohio,  by  occu- 

pations, 1885    .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .     297 

88.  Average  earnings  of  factory  workers,  for  a  year  of  300  working 

days,  1904        .         .         .         .         .     298 

89.  Average  annual  earnings  of  male  employees  in  manufactures, 

collated  with  the  percentages  of  foreign-born,  in  the 
principal  states,  1900 300-301 

90.  Average  annual  earnings  of  female  employees  in  manufactures, 

collated  with  the  percentages  of  foreign-born,  in  the  prin- 
cipal states,  1900  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  3QI 

91.  Weekly  hours  of  labor  in  Massachusetts,  1872  and  1903        .     313 

92.  Per  cent  distribution  of  factory  operatives  by  weekly  hours  of 

labor  in  New  York  City  and  in  New  York  state  outside 

of  New  York  City,  1901-1910         .          .  .     3*7 

93.  Per  cent  of  children  under  sixteen  employed  in  factories,  in 

the  United  States  and  in  six  leading  manufacturing 
states,  and  per  cent  of  foreign-born,  1909  .  3'9 

94.  Distribution,  by  parent  nativity  and  color,  of  the  number  of 

children  of  both  sexes,  ten  to  fifteen  years  of  age,  engaged 
in  manufactures  and  mechanical  pursuits,  by  geographi- 
cal divisions,  1900  .....  •  320 

95.  Cotton-mill  operatives  under  fourteen  years  of  age  in  the 

principal  manufacturing  states,  1900 

96.  Organization  of  native  and  immigrant  labor         .         .         -327 

97.  Organization  of  immigrant  labor       ...  .328 

98.  Number  and  date  of  organization  of  active  labor  unions  in 

six  industrial  states          .         .         •         •         •         •    334 

99.  Total  wages  paid  to  factory  operatives  in  the  United  States 

and  in  the  states  of  New  York  and  Kansas,  1899  and 
1909  .  .  .  ••  •  •  •  •  •  33« 


xxvi  Contents 

TABLE  PACB 

100.  Per  cent  ratio  of  trade-union  membership  to  urban  popula- 

tion in  New  York  and  Kansas,  1900-1909   .         .         .     339 

101.  Comparative  union  membership  in  the  state  of  New  York 

and  in  the  city  of  New  York,  1900     ....     342 

1 02.  Comparative  union  membership  in  the  state  of  New  York 

and  in  the  city  of  New  York,  1900-1910       .         .         .     343 

103.  Number  of  strikes  in  Massachusetts,  1830-1905,  and  Penn- 

sylvania, 1835-1905 344 

104.  Strikes  and  immigration  of  breadwinners  by  decennial  peri- 

ods, 1861-1905          .  ....     345 

105.  Agricultural  labor  unions  and  strikes  among  agricultural 

laborers  in  Italy 350 

1 06.  Per  cent  distribution,  by  nativity,  of  lodgers  at  municipal 

lodging-house  in  New  York  City  during  January,  Feb- 
ruary, and  March,  1908,  and  of  the  male  population 
twenty-one  years  of  age  and  over  at  the  XII.  Census     .     355 

107.  Per  cent  distribution,  by  nativity,  of  foreign-born  recipients 

of  charity,  1854-1860  and  1885-1895,  and  of  the  popu- 
lation of  New  York  City,  1855  and  1890  .  .  356 

.108.  Comparative  percentages  of  English  and  Irish  paupers  in 

Boston,  1837-1845,  and  in  New  York  City,  1885-1895  356 

109.  Per  cent  distribution  of  charity  cases  in  New  York  City,  by 

nativity  and  causes  of  need 357 

no.  Comparative  growth  of  the  value  of  the  products  of  the  cloth- 
ing industry  in  New  York  and  Baltimore,  1890-1905  .  369 

in.  Per  cent  distribution  of  foreign-born  adult  male  clothing 
workers,  eighteen  years  of  age  and  over,  residing  in  the 
United  States  less  than  five  years,  by  race  and  weekly 
earnings 370 

112.  Per  cent  of  striking  employees  in  the  clothing  industry  and  in 

all  the  United  States,  1887-1905         .         .         .         .373 

113.  Percentage  of  immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe 

among  the  textile  mill  operatives  of  Massachusetts, 
1880-1900 379 

114.  Average  yearly  earnings  of  cotton-mill  operatives,  by  sex  and 

age,  in  the  principal  states,  1904         ....     383 

115.  Distribution  of  the  operatives  of  both  sexes  in  the  woollen 

and  worsted  mills  of  Lawrence,  Mass.,  by  parent  nativ- 
ity, 1900 386 

1 16.  Number  of  native  Americans  of  native  parentage  employed 

in  the  woolen  and  worsted  mills  of  Lawrence,  1 900  and  1 909    387 

117.  Per  cent  increase  in  the  rates  of  wages  paid  by  one  of  the  two 

largest  worsted  mills  in  Lawrence  to  skilled  and  un- 
skilled operatives,  in  1889-1899  and  1899-1909  .  389 


Contents  xxvii 

TABLE  PAGE 

1 1 8.  Classification  of  employees  in  selected  rolling  mills  of  Ohio, 

by  rates  of  weekly  wages,  1884        .         .          .         .     395 

119.  Daily  wages  of  employees  in  steel  company  No.  i,  1880- 

1908 398 

120.  Comparative  wages  of  laborers  in  rolling  mills,  Ohio,  1884- 

1902        ..  398 

121.  Employees  of  Carnegie  Steel  Company  plants  in  Allegheny 

County,  Pa.,  classified  by  skill  and  racial  group,  March, 
1907  402 

122.  Per  cent  of  skilled  iron  and  steel  workers,  by  location     .         .     406 

123.  Per  cent  of  skilled  iron  and  steel  workers,  with  specified  earn- 

ings in  Eastern  and  Southern  mills      ....     407 

124.  Per  cent  of  employees  in  each  department  earning  twenty-five 

cents  and  over  per  hour,  in  the  Pittsburgh  and  the 
Southern  District  .......  408 

125.  Growth  of  population  and  of  the  production  of  coal,  1880- 

1910        .  419 

126.  Number  of  wage-earners  employed  in  anthracite  coal  mines, 

and  production  of  coal  by  five-year  periods,  1870-1909  .     437 

127.  Union  scale  of  wages  in  bituminous  coal  mines,  1898-1908     .     440 

128.  Wage  scale  of  employees  in  the  coal  mines  of  one  steel  com- 

pany in  Pennsylvania,  1895-1908      ....     441 

129.  Per  cent  of  adult  bituminous  coal-mine  workers  of  selected 

races  earning  each  specified  amount  per  day,  by 
locality  442 

130.  Membership  of  the  United  Mine  Workers  of  America,  1890- 

1904        ....  -447 

131.  Number  and  per  cent  distribution  of  fatal  accidents  in  coal 

mines  of  West  Virginia,  by  principal  causes  and  nativity 
of  persons  killed,  1899-1908,  and  per  cent  distribution 
of  employees  by  nativity,  1900  •  474 

132.  Number  and  per  cent  of  total  accidents  to  coal  miners,  clas- 

sified by  nativity  and  length  of  experience  in  West  Vir- 
ginia, 1899-1908  .  .  •  477 

133.  Indices  of  manufactures,  mining,  and  transportation:   1910, 

1914,  1918        .  -495 

134.  Net   immigration  or  emigration    of   breadwinners,   1915* 

I9I9         ....  ;     498 

135.  Purchasing  power  of  union  wage  rates,  measured  by  retail 

prices  of  food,  1913-1918  .  S^1 

136.  Proportion  of  malnourished  school  children  in  the  Borough 

of  Manhattan,  New  York  City  •     5<>4 

137.  Wheat  produced,  exported,  and  retained  for  consumption, 

1911-1918        .        ,        ,        .        i   ,     •        •        •    506 


xxviii  Contents 

TABLE  PACK 

138.  Index  numbers  of  the  yearly  production,  and  prices  of  veg- 
etable products,  1913-1918       .  507 


APPENDIX 

I.  Annual  average  immigration  distributed  by  occupa- 
tions, 1861-1910 531 

II.  Fluctuations  of  employment  of  male  wage-earners  in 

the  month  of  May,  1899  .         .  •     531 

III.  Maximum  and  minimum  numbers  of  wage-earners  em- 

ployed in  manufactures  during  any  one  month, 
number  and  per  cent  unemployed,  1899,  and  per 
cent  foreign-born  engaged  in  manufacturing  and 
mechanical  pursuits,  1900^  by  sex  and  by  states,  533 

IV.  Percentage  ratios  of  unemployed  and  of  foreign  white 

breadwinners  in  the  principal  occupations,  1900,     536 
V.  Bituminous  coal  mines:    greatest  and  least  numbers 
employed,  per  cent  unemployed  at  any  time  during 
the  year  1902,  and  per  cent  foreign  white  miners  in 
1900,  in  the  principal  states        ....     538 
VI.  Laborers,  male:   per  cent  foreign  white,  and  per  cent 

unemployed,  by  states,  1900     .         .         .         -539 
VII.  Cotton-mill  operatives,  male:    per  cent  foreign  white 

and  per  cent  unemployed,  by  states,  1900     .          .     540 
VIII.  Persons  employed  in  all  industries  of  Massachusetts, 

1888-1908 541 

IX.  Immigrant  breadwinners  destined  for  Massachusetts, 

1897-1908         .         .         .         .         .         .         .     541 

X.  Increase  or  decrease  of  the  number  of  breadwinners, 
classified  by  sex,  nativity,  and  occupation,  in  the 
United  States,  1890-1900  .  .  .  542 

XI.  Number  and  increase  or  decrease,  of  foreign-born  white 
male  breadwinners,  classified  by  nationality  and 
occupation,  1890-1900  .  .  Facing  544 

XII.  Foreign-born  engaged  in  gainful  occupations  in  Ger- 
many, 1900      .  -545 

XIII.  Foreign  born  in  Germany,  by  country  of  birth,  1880- 

1900  •     545 

XIV.  Foreign-born  population  from  the  Scandinavian  coun- 

tries and  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe,  by 
states,  1880,  1890,  1900,  and  1910      .         .         .     546 
XV.  Emigration  from  the  United  Kingdom,  by  destination 

of  emigrants,  1840-1909    .         .         .         .         .     546 


Contents  xxix 


TABLH 

XVI.  Congestion  in  Dublin:   classification  of  tenements  of 
four  rooms  or  less,  by  number  of  rooms  and  by  num- 
ber of  persons  per  tenement,  1901       .        .         .548 
XVII.  Representative  household  expenditures  for  food  in  the 
iron  district  of  the  South,  for  the  period  of  one  week 
in  1909     ........     549 

XVIII.  Earnings  and  expenses  in  Massachusetts,  1800,  1830, 

and  1860          .......     549 

XIX.  Average  income  and  expenditures  of  wage-earners  in 

specified  occupations,  in  New  Jersey,  1885         .     550 
XX.  Average  income  and  expenditures  of  unskilled  laborers 
in  New  Jersey,  classified  by  nativity  and  source  of 
income,  1885    .......     550 

XXI.  Average  wages  and  average  expenses  of  working  families 

with  deficits,  in  Ohio,  1885          •         •         •         •     55  1 

XXII.  Organized  workers  and  male  white  breadwinners,  en- 
gaged in  non-agricultural  pursuits,  in  Illinois  and 
New  Jersey,  classified  by  nativity  .  .  .  552 

XXIII.  Male  labor-union  membership  and  immigration,  New 

York  state,  1897-1910       .....     552 

XXIV.  Urban  population,  membership  of  labor  unions  and  per- 

centage of  organized  industrial  wage-earners  in 
New  York  and  Kansas,  1900-1909       .         .         -553 
XXV.  Daily  wages  in  steel  company  No.  i,  1880-1908  .         .     553 
XXVI.  Per  cent  of  machine-mined  bituminous  coal,  and  per 
cent  ratio  of  foreign  born  from  Southern  and  East- 
ern Europe  for  each  of  the  principal  coal-producing 
states,  1900  and  1910         .  ...     555 

XXVII.  Per  cent  of  miners  of  Southern  and  Eastern  European 
parentage,  lives  lost  per  million  tons,  and  per  1,000 
employees,  in  bituminous  coal  mines   .         .         .     555 
XXVIII.  Number  of  employees,  and  fatal  accident  rates  in  the 

anthracite  mines  of  Pennsylvania,  1870-1909        .     556 
XXIX.  Number  of  fatal  accidents,  and  ratio  per  1,000  em- 

ployees on  railroads  and  in  coal  mines,  1889-1908  .     557 
XXX.  Arrival  and  departure  of  aliens,  1908-1920         .         .     558 
XXXI.  Immigration  and  emigration  of  breadwinners,  1915- 

1919          .....  559 

XXXII.  Comparison  of  persons  seeking  work  and  workers  called 
for  by  employers  at  public  employment  offices  in 
the  state  of  New  York,  1916-1918  .  .  559 

XXXIII.  Exports  or  principal  breadstuffs,  other  than  wheat,  from 

the  United  States,  1910-1918    .         .         •         .560 


LIST  OF  DIAGRAMS 

DIAGRAM  PAGB 

I.  Immigration  and  business  conditions,  1880-1910          .       87 
II.  Movement  of  third-class  passengers  between  the  United 

States  and  European  ports,  1899-1909        .  89 

III.  Monthly  immigration  and  emigration,  from  July,  1907, 

to  May,  1909  .  ...  -91 

IV.  Relative  per  capita  production  of  coal,  agricultural 

staples  and  live  stock I05 

V.  Average  number  of  male  wage-earners  employed  in 
manufactures  in  the  United  States  and  in  principal 

states,  by  months,  1899 118 

VI.  Per  cent  unemployed 122 

VII.  Per  cent  unemployed  at  any  time  during  the  year,  and 
per  cent  of  foreign  born  in  fifty  leading  occupations, 

1900          .  133 

VIII.  Ratio  of  unemployment  in  bituminous  coal  mines,  1902, 

and  percentage  of  foreign-born  miners,  1900         .     134 
IX.  Ratio  of  unemployment  of  factory  workert  m  Massachu- 
setts, and  number  of  immigrant  breadwinners  des- 
tined for  Massachusetts,  1897-1908       .         .         -139 
X.  Average  number  of  days  worked  in  the  bituminous  coal 
mines  of  Pennsylvania,  and  number  of  immigrant 
miners  and  laborers  destined  for  Pennsylvania, 

1901-1909 141 

XI.  Days  of  employment  in  organized  trades  in  the  state 
of  New  York,  and  number  of  immigrant  breadwin- 
-  ners  destined  for  New  York,  1897-1909     .         .144 
XII.  Per  cent  of  increase  of  the  production  of  coal  in  the 
United  States,  Germany,  and  Great  Britain,  1890- 
1909 .184 

XIII.  Production  of  pig  iron  in  Germany,  the  United  States, 

and  the  United  Kingdom,  1880-1910          .         .     184 

XIV.  Emigration  from  Germany  to  all  countries  outside  of 

the  United  States,  and  per  cent  of  Southern  and 
Eastern  European  immigration  to  the  total  immi- 
gration to  the  United  States,  1890-1904  .  .  195 
XV.  Increase  of  Scandinavians  and  of  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europeans  in  a  group  of  eleven  western  states  and 
in  the  remainder  of  the  United  States,  1 880- 1 9 1  o  .  197 


Contents 

DIAGRAM  PACK 

XVI.  Net  emigration  from  the  United  Kingdom,  by  destina- 
tion, 1895-1909 214 

XVII.  Per  cent  ratio  of  home  owners  and  tenants  to  all  families, 
classified  by  age  periods  and  by  geographical  divi- 
sions, 1890 280-281 

XVIII.  Average  daily  wages  of  railroad  employees,  1891-1909  .     304 
XIX.  Medians  of  relative  cost  of  living  and  average  of  bien- 
nial medians  of  relative  wages,  1861-1865     .         .     308 
XX.  Labor-union  membership  in  the  state  of  New  York, 
number  of  immigrant  breadwinners  destined  for 
the  state  of  New  York,  and  combined  imports  and 
exports  through  the  port  of  New  York,  1897-1910    336 
XXI.  Male  union  membership  in  the  states  of  New  York  and 
Kansas,  1900-1909,  per  cent  ratio  to  the  number 
of  industrial  wage-earners  in  1900        .         .         .     340 
XXII.  Number  of  persons  employed  in  bituminous  coal  mines, 

1880,  1889,  and  1907         .....     420 

XXIII.  Per  cent  of  bituminous  coal  mined  by  machine,  1900 

and  1910,  compared  with  per  cent  ratio  of  Southern 
and  Eastern  European  miners  to  all  miners,  1900; 
and  with  per  cent  ratio  of  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europeans  to  the  total  population,  1910,  for  the 
principal  states  ......  429 

XXIV.  Coal  production  by  months,  in  Illinois,  1906-1910        .     433 
XXV.  Fatal  accident  rates  in  coal  mines  per  1,000  workmen 

employed  in  the  United  States  and  foreign  coun- 
tries   469 

XXVI.  Fatal  accident  rates  in  coal  mines,  1889-1908,  and  per- 
centage of  miners  of  'Slavic  and  Italian  parentage 
in  1900,  in  the  principal  states          .         .         .     472 
XXVII.  Fatal  accident  rates  in  anthracite  coal  mines,  1870-1909    479 
XXVIII.  Fatal  accident  rates  per  1,000  employees  on  railroads 

and  in  coal  mines,  1889-1908    ....     485 

XXIX.  Indices  of  physical  production  for  agriculture,  mining, 

and  manufacture,  1899-1919      ....     496 

MAPS 

Per  cent  ratio  of  native  white  children  under  five  years  of  age,  born 
of  native  mothers,  to  native  white  females  fifteen  to  forty- 
four  years  of  age  in  cities  of  less  than  25,000  inhabitants  and 
rural  territory,  1900  .  .  .  Facing  227 

Production  of  coal  in  states  with  an  annual  output  of  not  less  than 

1,000,000  tons 416-417 


Immigration  and  Labor 


PART  I 

SUMMARY   REVIEW 

IT  is  the  purpose  of  this  review  to  state  briefly  for  the 
benefit  of  the  busy  reader  the  results  of  our  inquiry  into 
the  various  phases  of  the  immigration  question.  Such  a 
summary  must  necessarily  be  dogmatic  in  form.  Every 
proposition  is  advanced  here,  however,  merely  as  a  theorem, 
whose  demonstration  is  presented  in  its  proper  place,  in 
another  part  of  the  book. 

It  is  recognized  on  all  sides  that  the  present  movement  for 
restriction  of  immigration  has  a  purely  economic  object:  the 
restriction  of  competition  in  the  labor  market.  Organized 
labor  demands  the  extension  of  the  protectionist  policy  to 
the  home  market  in  which  "hands" — the  laborer 's  only 
commodity — are  offered  for  sale.  The  advocates  of  restric- 
tion believe  that  every  immigrant  admitted  to  this  country 
takes  the  place  of  some  American  workingman.  At  the 
inception  of  the  restrictionist  movement,  in  the  8o's  and  the 
early  90*8,  they  were  avowedly  opposed  to  immigration  in 
general.  The  subsequent  decline  of  immigration  from  the 
British  Isles,  Germany,  and  the  Scandinavian  countries 
and  the  increase  of  immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe  have  diverted  the  attack  from  immigration  in  general 
to  "the  new  immigration"  from  Southern  and  Eastern 

2 


2  Immigration  and  Labor 

Europe  an4  the  Asiatic  provinces  of  Turkey.  Yet  while  the 
root  of  'allevil  is  now  sought  in  the  racial  makeup  of  the  new 
imniigratioi?;  as  contrasted-  with  the  old,  every  objection  to 
the  immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  is  but 
an  echo  of  the  complaints  which  were  made  at  an  earlier  day 
against  the  then  new  immigration  from  Ireland,  Germany, 
and  even  from  England.  Three  quarters  of  a  century 
ago,  as  to-day,  the  only  good  immigrants  were  the  dead 
immigrants. 

There  is  no  real  ground  for  the  popular  opinion  that  the 
immigrants  of  the  present  generation  are  drawn  from  a 
poorer  class  than  their  predecessors.  It  is  a  historical  fact 
that  prior  to  1820  the  great  majority  of  the  immigrants  were 
too  poor  to  prepay  their  passage,  which  never  cost  as  much 
as  $50  per  steerage  passenger;  the  usual  way  for  a  poor  man 
to  secure  transportation  for  himself  and  family  was  to  con- 
tract to  be  sold  into  servitude  after  arrival.  The  next  gene- 
ration of  immigrants  was  not  much  better  off.  According  to 
contemporary  testimony,  the  millions  of  Irish  and  Germans 
who  came  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  were 
ignorant  and  accustomed  to  a  very  low  standard  of  living. 
Since  the  races  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  have 
become  predominant  among  immigrants  to  the  United 
States,  the  steerage  rates  have  been  doubled,  the  increase 
being  equivalent  to  a  heavy  head  tax.  The  higher  cost  of 
transportation  must  have  raised  the  financial  standard 
of  the  new  immigration,  as  compared  with  the  immigrant? 
of  the  70*5  and  the  early  8o's.  This  inference  is  borne  out 
by  the  fact  that  the  percentage  of  illiteracy  is  much  lower 
among  the  immigrants  than  among  their  countrymen  who 
remain  at  home.  Illiteracy  is  generally  the  effect  of  pov- 
erty. The  higher  literacy  of  the  immigrant  may  be  accep- 
ted as  evidence  that  economically  the  immigrant  must  be 
above  the  average  of  his  mother  country. 

The  complaint  that  the  new  immigrants  do  not  easily 
"assimilate"  is  also  as  old  as  immigration  itself.  To-day 
the  Germans  are  reckoned  by  courtesy  among  the  "  English- 


"Summary  Review  3 

speaking  races."  But  as  late  as  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century  the  growth  of  German  colonies  in  all  large  cities 
caused  the  same  apprehension  in  the  minds  of  their  Ameri- 
can contemporaries  as  the  Jewish,  the  Italian,  and  the  Slav 
colonies  of  our  day.  Statistics  show,  however,  that  the  new 
immigrant  races  number  among  them  as  large  a  percentage 
of  English-speaking  persons  as  the  Germans  who  have  lived 
in  the  United  States  the  same  length  of  time. 

The  only  real  difference  between  the  old  immigration  and 
the  new  is  that  of  numbers.  To  the  workman  wKo  com- 
plains that  he  has  been  crowded  out  of  his  job  by  another, 
it  would  afford  little  comfort  to  feel  that  the  man  who  had 
taken  his  place  was  of  Teuton  or  Celtic,  rather  than  of 
Latin  or  Slav  stock.  The  true  reason  why  the  "old  immi- 
gration "  is  preferred  is  that  there  is  very  much  less  of  it. 

As  stated,  the  demand  for  restriction  proceeds  from  the 
assumption  that  the  American  labor  market  is  overstocked  ; 
by  immigration.  Comparative  statistics  of  industry  and 
population  in  the  United  States  show,  however,' that  immi- 
gration merely  follows  opportunities  for  employment.  In 
times  of  business  expansion  immigrants  enter  in  increasing 
numbers;  in  times  of  business  dcglfcjsion  their  numbers 
decline.  The  immigration  movemW^.is  further  balanced 
by  emigration  from  the  United  States.  As  a  rule,  the  causes 
which  retard  immigration  also  accelerate  the  return  move- 
ment from  this  country.  It  is  customary  to  condemn  the 
"bird  of  passage,"  but  so  long  as  there  are  variations  in 
business  activity  from  season  to  season  and  from  year  to 
year,  the  American  wage-earner  has  no  cause  to  complain  of 
the  immigrants  who  choose  to  leave  this  country  tempo- 
rarily while  there  is  no  demand  for  their  services,  thereby 
reducing  unemployment  in  its  acutest  stage. 

It  is  broadly  asserted  by  restriction  advocates  that  the 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  Slav,  Italian,  Greek,  Syrian,  and 
other  immigrant  mine  and  mill  workers  have  been  "im- 
ported" by  capitalists-— in  other  words,  that  they  are  all  con- 
tract laborers.  This  belief  offers  to  the  student  of  folk-lore 


4  Immigration  and  Labor 

a  typical  example  of  twentieth  century  myth-building.  None 
of  the  official  investigations  of  immigration  has  disclosed 
any  evidence  of  importation  of  laborers  under  contract 
on  a  large  scale,  although  prior  to  the  enactment  of 
the  law  of  1885  excluding  contract  laborers  there  was  no 
reason  to  conceal  the  fact.  It  is  quite  conceivable  that  in 
the  case  of  a  strike  a  great  corporation  might  have  resorted 
to  the  importation  of  a  large  force  of  strikebreakers  re- 
gardless of  cost.  As  a  general  rule,  however,  with  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  immigrants  coming  to  this  country  an- 
nually, it  would  be  a  waste  of  money  to  "induce"  immi- 
gration. The  few  actual  violations  of  the  contract  labor 
law  that  elude  the  vigilance  of  the  immigration  authorities 
cannot  affect  the  labor  market. 

The  real  agents  who  regulate  the  immigration  movement 
are  the  millions  of  earlier  immigrants  already  in  the  United 
States.  It  is  they  that  advance  the  cost  of  passage  of  a^ 
large  proportion  of  the  new  immigrants.  When  the  outlook 
for  employment  is  good,  they  send  for  their  relatives,  or 
encourage  their  friends  to  come.  When  the  demand  for 
labor  is  slack,  the  foreign-born  workman  must  hold  his 
savings  in  reserve,  JJorovide  for  possible  loss  of  employ- 
ment. At  such  tim(Jpo  wage-earner  will  assume  the  bur- 
den of  providing  for  a  relative  or  friend,  who  might  for  a  long 
time  be  unable  to  secure  employment.  It  is  in  this  way 
that  the  business  situation  in  the  United  States  reacts  upon 
the  volume  of  immigration.  The  fluctuating  supply  of 
immigrant  labor,  like  that  of  any  other  commodity,  may 
sometimes  outrun  the  demand  and  at  other  times  lag  behind 
it,  yet,  if  we  compare  the  totals  for  industrial  cycles,  com- 
prising years  of  panic,  of  depression,  and  of  prosperity, 
within  the  past  sixty  years,  we  find  that  the  ratio  of  immi- 
gration to  population  has  been  well-nigh  constant.  In  the 
long  run  immigration  adjusts  itself  to  the  demand  for  labor. 

This  proposition  seems  to  be  inconsistent  with  the  pres- 
ence at  all  times  of  a  vast  number  of  unemployed.  Ap- 
parently, there  are  already  more  men  than  jobs  in  the 


Summary  Review 

United  States;  every  new  immigrant,  in  order  to  live,  must 
take  away  the  job  from  some  one  else  who  has  been  here 
before.  On  closer  study,  however,  it  is  found  that  unem-  "jgT: 
ployment  is  not  the  effect  of  an  absolute  surplus  population. .' 
It  arises,  notwithstanding  a  growing  demand  for  labor,  from 
the  fluctuations  in  the  distribution  of  the  demand.  The 
most  generally  recognized  cause  of  unemployment  is  sea- 
sonal variation  of  business  activity.  There  are  trades 
dependent  largely  upon  climatic  conditions  and  partly  upon 
social  customs.  In  the  period  of  maximum  activity  the 
demand  for  labor  in  such  trades  may  often  so  far  exceed  the 
supply  as  to  necessitate  overtime  work;  yet  this  shortage  of 
labor  will  not  save  a  portion  of  the  force  from  idleness  at 
other  times  of  the  year.  The  only  class  of  labor  which  is  L/ 
capable  of  shifting  from  one  industry  to  another  in  response 
to  variations  in  demand  is  unskilled  labor.  But  the  locali- 
zation of  industries  sets  a  limit  to  the  mobility  of  unskilled 
labor.  In  order  to  eliminate  unemployment  it  would  be 
necessary  to  dovetail  the  busy  and  the  slack  seasons  in  the 
various  industries  upon  such  a  plan  as  would  produce  an 
even  distribution  of  the  work  of  thej^^n  over  all  seasons 
of  the  year.  This  might  be  possij^  ^tonines,  mills,  and 
transportation  lines  were  operatedB  Ration- wide  trust. 
So  long,  however,  as  production  iSHPned  by  many  com- 
peting employers,  each  subject  to  his  own  vicissitudes  of 
business,  insecurity  of  employment  is  inevitable.  The 
normal  state  of  every  industry  is  £o  have  a  larger  force 
than  can  ever  find  employment  in  it  at  any  one  time.  The 
labor  reserve  is  as  much  a  part  of  the  industrial  system  as 
the  regular  force.  / 

Still,  the  labor  market  being  normally  overstocked,  it 
sounds  plausible  that  the  immigrant,  who  is  accustomed  to 
a  lower  standard  of  living  at  home  than  the  American  work- 
man, will  be  able  to  underbid  and  displace  his  American 
competitor.  :'lf  this  view  were  correct,  we  should  find,  in 
the  first  place,  a  higher  percentage  of  unemployment  among  j 
*v,«  „-••  than  among  the  foreign-born  breadwinners.  « 


Immigration  and  Labor 

Statistics,  however,  show  that  the  proportion  of  unemploy- 
ment is  the  same  for  native  and  foreign-born  wage-earners. 
The  immigrant  has  no  advantage  over  the  native  American 
in  securing  or  retaining  employment.  In  the  next  place, 
,  we  should  find  more  unemployment  in  those  sections  of  the 
United  States  where  the  immigrants  are  most  numerous. 
In  fact,  however,  the  ratio  of  unemployment  in  manufac- 
tures is  the  same  in  the  North  Atlantic  States  with  a  large 
immigrant  population  as  in  the  South  Atlantic  States  where 
the  percentage  of  foreign-born  is  negligible.  Coal  miners  are 
thought  to  have  suffered  most  from  immigration.  Yet  it  ap- 
pears that  Pennsylvania,  which  is  among  the  States  with  the 
highest  percentages  of  foreign-born  miners,  has  the  second 
lowest  percentage  of  unemployment.  The  highest  ratio  of 
unemployment ,  according  to  the  latest  published  census  data, 
was  found  in  West  Virginia,  where  the  percentage  of  foreign- 
born  miners  was  next  to  the  lowest.  A  similar  relation 
between  unemployment  and  the  proportion  of  immigrants  is 
observed  among  cotton-mill  operatives  and  common  labor- 
ers: immigrants  are  not  attracted  to  those  States  where 
opportunities  for  j^ular  employment  are  less  favorable. 

Furthermore,  ijfl  Hoisted  a  causal  connection  between 
immigration  an«r:  i  fcyment,  there  should  have  been 
more  unemployrnMMMRose  years  when  immigration  was 
greater,  and  vice  versa.  The  figures  show,  on  the  contrary, 
that  there  was  less  unemployment  during  the  first  seven 
years  of  the  present  century  with  immigration  at  a  high 
tide  than  during  the  preceding  decade  when  immigration 
was  at  a  low  ebb. 

Still  an  oversupply  of  labor  may  produce  a  latent  form  of 
unemployment  which  could  be  described  as  underemploy- 
ment: all  employees  may  be  kept  on  the  rolls,  and  yet  be 
idle  a  part  of  every  week.  Again,  however,  we  find  that  the 
average  number  of  days  of  employment  per  wage-earner 
increases  as  immigration  increases^-and  declines  as  immi- 
gration declines. 


Summary  Review  7 

The  relation  between  immigration  and  unemployment 
may  thus  be  su>  -JV^J1  ^J16  following  propositions: 

Unemployment  and  immigf  ati6tf are  the  effects  of  economic 
\forces  working  in  opposite  directions:  those^  which  produce 
business  expansion  reduce  unemployment  and  attract  immi- 
gration; those  which  produce  business  depression  increase 
unemployment  and  reduce  immigration. 

Yet  it  may  be  said  that  while  immigration  is  not  a  con- 
tributory cause  of  unemployment,  restriction  of  immigra- 
tion might  nevertheless  reduce  unemployment.  This  sup- 
position is  negatived  by  the  experience  of  Australia,  where 
emigration  exceeds  immigration.  Australia  is  a  new  coun- 
try with  an  area  as  great  as  that  of  the  United  States,  while 
its  population  at  the  census  of  1906  was  half  a  million  short 
of  the  population  of  New  York  City  at  the  census  of  1910.  / 
Yet  Australia  has  as  much  unemployment  as  the  State  of 
New  York,  which  is  teeming  with  immigrants.  It  is  evident 
that  unemployment  is  produced  by  the  modern  organiza- 
tion of  industry  even  in  the  absence  of  immigration. 

There  is  a  widespread  belief  that,  although  on  the  whole 
the  United  States  is  in  need  of  immigrant  labor,  "the  new 
immigration"  has  a  tendency  to  stagnate  in  the  overpopu- 
lated  cities,  while  there  is  a  keen  demand  for  hands  in  agri- 
cultural sections.  A  retrospective  view  of  the  history  of 
Immigration  shows  that  this  tendency  is  not  peculiar  to 
"the  new  immigration."  For  the  past  ninety  years  public 
men  ancf  social  theorists  have  sought  to  relieve  unemploy- 
ment in  the  cities  by  directing  the  current  of  immigration 
to  the  farm,  but  the  immigrants  have  always  preferred  to 
seek  employment  in  the  cities.  The  popular  mind  Which 
accounts  for  individual  conduct  by  the  "free  will"  of  the 
individual  applies  the  same  criterion  to  social  phenomena: 
the  Italians  and  the  Slavs  concentrate  in  the  cjties  because 
they  have  a  "racial  tendency"  to  concentrate^  the  cities. 
That  most  of  the  immigrants  of  those  nationalities  have 
grownup  in  agricultural  communities  a'nd  that  many  of  them 
after  working  a  few  years  in  a  great  American  city  return 


8  Immigration  and  Labor 

•  home  and  go  back  to  the  soil,  argues  against  the  assumption 
"lota  "racial"  dislike  for  agriculture.     The  real  cause  of  the 

Concentration  of  immigrants  in  the  cities  is  economic.    Even 
the  "desirable"  immigrant  from  Northern  and  Western 

.  Europe  who  lands  with  a  capital  of  fifty  and  odd  dollars 

**  lacks  the  funds  to  rent  a  farm.  At  best  he  can  obtain  em- 
ployment only  as  a  farm  hand.  Since  the  early  days  of  Irish 

V  and  German  immigration,  however,  the  growing  industries 
of  the  cities  have  offered  a  better  market  for  labor  than 
agriculture. 

The  industrial  development  of  the  United  States  has 
manifested  itself  in  a  relative,  and  in  some  sections  an 
absolute,  depopulation  of  rural  territory.  There  is  a  large 
migration  of  native  Americans  of  native  stock  from  country 
to  city.  This  movement  is  the  result  of  the  revolution 

,  in  American  farming  conditions  and  methods,  which  has 

*  tended  to  reduce  the  demand  for  labor  on  the  farm.     The 
American  farm  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  was 
.the  seat  of  a  highly  diversified  industry.    The  members  of  a 
farm  household  made  their  own  tools  and  part  of  the  furni- 
ture; they  were  spinners  and  weavers;  they  made  their  own 
Clothes,  and  soap  and  candles  for  their  own  use.     WitlTsuch 
a  variety  of  occupations  there  was  work  for  a  hired  man  at 
all  seasons  of  the  year.     But  industrial  differentiation  has 
removed  from  the  farm  one  industry  after  another.     The 
time  during  which  a  hired  man  can  be  kept  employed  on  the 
farm  has  been  reduced  in  consequence  to  a  few  months  in 
the  year.  Still  until  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  the 
mills  were  quite  commonly  run  by  water  power,  which 
made  for  decentralization  of  manufactures.     The  small 
country  towns  accordingly  offered  to  the  farm  laborer  a 
prospect  of  employment  when  work  was  scarce  on  the  farm. 
But  the  general  substitution  of  steam  for  water  power  led  to 
the  removal  of  factories  from  small  towns  to  great  commer- 

/xaal  centers.     The  opportunity  to. earn  a  full  year's  wages 
(  in  a  rural  community  was  gone. 

While  in  manufacturing 'the  invention  of  labor-saving 


Summary  Review  9 

machinery  has  resulted  in  the  gradual  displacement  of  the 
small  proprietor  by  the  wage-earner,  in  American  agriculture, 
on  the  contrary,  the  machine  has  tended  to  eliminate  the 
wage-earner.  As  late  as  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century 
the  agricultural  methods  of  the  American  farmer  differed 
little  from  those  of  his  ancestors.  Grass  was  mowed  with  a 
scythe.  Grain  was  cut  with  a  sickle  and  threshed  with  a 
flail.  Flailing  and  winnowing  grain  was  the  chief  farm 
work  of  the  winter.  Corn  was  planted  by  hand,  cultivated 
with  the  hoe,  and  shelled  by  scraping  the  ears  against  the 
handle  of  a  frying  pan.  The  cultivation  of  a  farm  in  this 
primitive  way  sustained  a  demand  for  steady  farm  help  in 
all  seasons.  To-day  there  is  some  implement  or  machine 
for  every  kind  of  farm  work.  It  is  estimated  that  the  quan- 
tity of  labor  saved  by  machinery  represents  the  services 
of  one  and  a  half  million  men  working  every  week  day  in 
the  year. 

In  consequence  of  limited  demand',  agricultural  labor  is 
the  least  remunerative  of  all  occupations.  The  hours  of 
labor*  on  the  farm  are  longer  than  even  in  the  steel  mills  of 
Pennsylvania.  Small  pay,  long  hours,  and  irregular 
employment  is  what  the  immigrant  can  expect  on  a  farm. 
His  preference  for  city  work  which  pays  better  can  be  easily 
explained  without  delving  into  the  mysteries  of  race  psy- 
chology. It  merely  confirms  the  rule  that  immigration 
follows  the  demand  for  labor. 

The  effect  of  immigration  upon  labor  in  the  United  States       ^_ 
has  been,  a  readjustment  of  the  population  on  the  scalejof  ^ 
occupations.     The  majority  of  Americans  of  native  paren- 
tage are  engaged  in  farrning,  in  business,  in  trie?  professions, 

and  in  clerical  pursuits,  f  The  majority  of  the  immigrants,    ^ 

on  the  other  hand,  are  industrial  wage-earners.  Only  in 
exceptional  cases  has  this  readjustment  been  attended  by 
actual  displacement  of  the  native  or  Americanized  wage- 
earner.  In  the  course  o^trial  evolution  some  fr^es 
have  declined  owing  to  thr  !i  :•;  reduction  of  new  methods  ot 
production.  In  such  cases  there  was  naturally  a  decrease  of 


io  Immigration  and  Labor 

the  number  of  native  as  well  as  of  foreign-born  workers. 
As  a  rule,  however,  the  supply  of  immigrant  labor  has  been 
absorbed  by  the  increasing  demand  for  labor  in  all  industries 
without  leaving  a  surplus  sufficient  to  displace  the  native  or 
older  immigrant  wage-earner.  There  were  but  a  few  occu- 
pations which  showed  an  actual,  not  a  relative  decrease  of 
native  Americans  of  native  stock.  This  decrease  was  due 
to  the  disinclination  of  the  young  generation  to  follow  the 
pursuits  of  their  fathers;  the  new  accessions  from  native 
stock  were  insufficient  to  replace  the  older  men  as  they  were 
dying  off,  and  the  vacancies  were  gradually  filled  up  by 
immigrants.  But  for  every  position  given  up  by  a  native 
American  there  were  many  new  openings  filled  by  native 
American  wage-earners. 

The  westward  movement  of  American  and  Americanized 
wage-earners  and  the  concentration  of  immigrants  in  a  few 
Eastern  and  Central  States  have  been  interpreted  as  the 
"displacement"  of  the  English-speaking  workmen  from  the 
mills  and  mines  of  the  East  by  the  new  immigration.  An 
examination  of  the  figures  shows,  however,  that  durinf  the 
past  thirty  years  mining  and  manufacturing  grew  much 
faster  in  the  West  and  South  than  in  the  East  and  drew  some 
of  the  native  workers  and  earlier  immigrants  from  the  older 
manufacturing.  States.  But  the  demand  for  labor  grew  in 
the  old  States  as  well.  The  places  left  vacant  by  the  old 
employees  who  had  gone  westward  had  to  be  filled  by  new 
immigrants. 

The  desertion  of  mills  and  factories  by  native  American 
girls  has  also  been  explained  as  their  "displacement"  by 
immigrants.  The  motive  assigned  is  not  economic,  but 
racial :  it  is  the  social  prejudice  against  the  immigrant  that 
has  forced  the  American  girl  to  quit.  It  seems,  however, 
that  this  explanation  mistakes  cause  for  effect:  the  social 
stigma  attaching  to  working  association  with  immigrants  is 
not  the  cause  but  the  effect  of  the  desertion  of  the  mills  and 
factories  by  native  American  women.  The  psychological 
interpretation  overlooks  one  of  the  greatest  economic 


Summary  Review  n 

changes  that  has  taken  place  in  the  United  States  since  the 
Civil  War:  the  admission  of  women  to  most  of  the  pursuits 
which  were  formerly  regarded  as  peculiarly  masculine.  For 
every  native  woman  of  American  parentage  who  left  the 
mill  or  clothing  factory  there  were  forty  women  of  the  same 
nativity  who  found  new  openings.  The  increase  of  the 
number  of  native  American  professional  women  was  nearly 
five  times  as  great  as  the  decrease  of  the  number  of  native 
American  factory  girls.  The  marvelous  progress  of  the, 
American  educational  system  has  fitted  the  native  American^ 
woman  for  other  work  than  manual  labor  and  has  at  the 
same  time  opened  to  her  a  new  field  in  which  she  does  not 
meet  the  competition  of  the  immigrant. 

There  is  absolutely  no  statistical  proof  of  an  oversupply 
of  unskilled  labor  resulting  in  the  displacement  of  native  *• 
by  immigrant  laborers.  No  decrease  of  the  number  of 
common  laborers  among  the  native  white  of  native  or  for- 
eign parentage  appears  in  any  of  the  great  States  which 
serve  as  receptacles  for  immigration.  The  same  is  true  of 
miners.  In  none  of  the  States  affected  by  the  new  immi- 
gration has  there  been  a  decrease  in  the  number  of  native 
miners.  Such  States  as  Pennsylvania  and  Illinois  showed 
large  increases  in  the  number  of  native  miners,  both  of  for- 
eign and  native  parentage.  The  iron  and  steel  mills  are 
another  industry  from  which  the  recent  immigrants  are 
popularly  believed  to  have  forced  out  the  native  workmen 
and  older  English-speaking  immigrants..  The  fact  is,  that 
in  the  earlier  period  of  the  industry,  when  immigration  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  was  negligible,  the  number 
of  American  employees  increased  very  slowly;  during  the 
recent  period,  on  the  contrary,  since  the  immigrants  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  have  been  coming  in  large 
numbers,  the  number  of  American-born  employees  of  every 
nativity  has  more  than  doubled.  The  increased  employment 
of  native  Americans  is  recorded  in  the  figures  for  every  im- 
portant iron-  and  steel-producing  State,  as  well  as  for  every 
city  holding  a  leading  place  in  the  iron  and  steel  industry. 


12  Immigration  and  Labor 

The  effect  of  immigration  upon  the  occupational  distribu- 
tion of  the  industrial  wage-earners  has  been  the  elevation  of 

„  the  English-speaking  workmen  to  the  status  of  an  aris- 
tocracy of  labor,  while  the  immigrants  have  been  employed 
to  perform  the  rough  work  of  all  industries.  Though  the  in- 
troduction of  machinery  has  had  the  tendency  to  reduce  the 
relative  number  of  skilled  mechanics,  yet  the  rapid  pace  of 
industrial  expansion  has  increased  the  number  of  skilled  and 
supervisory  positions  so  fast  that  practically  all  the  English- 
^  speaking  employees  have  had  the  opportunity  to  rise  on  the 
scale  of  occupations.  This  opportunity,  however,  was  con- 
ditioned upon  a  corresponding  increase  of  the  totM  opera- 
ting force.  It  is  only  because  the  new  immigration  has 
!  furnished  the  class  of  unskilled  laborers  that  the  native 

"~    workmen  and  older  immigrants  have  been  raisedVt <Afche 
^  plane  of  an  aristocracy  of  labor.  $  y 

Yet,  while  the  number  of  native  American  workmen  in  ajl 
industries  has  increased,  it  is  true  that  in  some  occupation^ 
there  has  been  an  actual  decrease  of  the  number  of  English, 
Welsh,  Irish,  and  German  workers,  which  has  been  con- 
strued as ' '  displacement ' '  of  Americanized  workers  by  immi- 
.  grants  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  with  a  lower 
standard  of  living.  This  interpretation  overlooks  the  fact 
that  native  workers  of  native  parentage,  presumably  with  as 
high  a  standard  of  living  as  the  Irish,  are  found  in  the  same 
occupations  in  larger  numbers  than  formerly.  Anotherv 
fact  that  contradicts  the  popular  view  is  the  increase  of  the 
number  of  Scotch  immigrants  in  those  ver}r  occupations 
which  show  a  decline  in  the  number  of  English  and  Irish. 
Judged  by  any  standard,  the  Scotch  are  not  inferior  to  other 
immigrants  from  the  United  Kingdom.  The  increased 
employment  of  the  Scotch  in  the  principal  occupations, 
including  even  common  laborers,  warrants  the  conclusion 
that  the  decline  in  the  numbers  of  English  and  Irish  must 
have  been  due  to  other  causes  than ;the  competition  of  recent 
immigrants  with  lower  standards  c  Hiving.  A  further  fact 
that  must  be  considered  in  thit,  connection  is  that  the 


Summary  Review  13 

English,  Welsh,  and  Irish  farmers  exhibit  a  greater  decrease, 
both  absolute  and  relative,  than  any  other  occupational 
group  among  the  same  nationalities.  Evidently  no  new 
farmers  came  to  fill  the  places  of  their  countrymen  who 
were  carried  off  by  death,  although  the  aliens  from  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europe  kept  away  from  the  fanning  sections 
and  left  the  field  open  for  English,  Welsh,  and  Irish 
immigrants.  / 

The  real  explanation  of  the  decrease  in  the  number  of 
immigrants  from  Northern  and  Western  Europe  in  the  occu- 
pations which  rank  lowest  in  the  social  scale  is  that  the 
earlier  immigrants  have  worked  their  way  upward.  Among 
the  breadwinners  born  in  Northern  and  Western  Europe, 
farmers,  business  men,  professional  men,  and  skilled  mechan- 
ics outnumber  those  who  are  employed  in  the  coarser  grades 
of  labor.  The  latter  have  been  left  to  immigrants  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  ^ 

There  has  been  a  great  deal  of  speculation  to  the  effect 
that  had  immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe 
been  kept  out  of  the  United  States,  the  immigrants  from 
'Northern  and  Western  Europe  would,  as  of  old,  have  sup- 
plied the  demand  of  American  industry  for  unskilled  labor. 
The  fallacy  of  this  assumption  is  apparent  from  a  consid- 
eration of  the  comparative  growth  of  population  in  the 
United  States  and  in  the  countries  of  Northern  and  Western 
Europe,  as  well  as  of  the  economic  conditions  in  those  coun- 
tries. As  stated  before,  immigration  in  the  long  run  bears  ! 
a  constant  relation  to  the  population  of  the  United  States. 
Inasmuch,  however,  as  the  latter  increases  faster  than  the 
population  of  Europe,  especially  that  of  the  emigration 
countries,  the  rate  of  emigration  from  those  countries  must 
increase  much  faster  than  their  population  in  order  to  sup- 
ply the  American  industries  with  the  number  of  immigrants 
they  can  employ.  Yet  the  volume  of  emigration  from  any 
country  can  not  increase  beyond  a  certain  limit  set  by  the. 
size  of  its  population.  When  that  point  is  reached,  further 
industri--"  o  in  the  United  States  must  draw  upon 


14  Immigration  and  Labor 

the  labor  supply  of  other  countries.  In  order  to  replace  the 
immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  that  were 
absorbed  by  the  industrial  expansion  of  the  past  decade, 
immigration  from  Great  Britain,  Germany,  and  the  Scan- 
dinavian countries  should  have  risen  to  the  Irish  level, 
whereas  Ireland  ought  to  have  been  depopulated  at  a 
greater  rate  than  in  the  years  of  the  Irish  famine.  The 
recent  development  of  those  countries,  however,  has  had  a 
decided  tendency  to  check  emigration. 

In  the  closing  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  Germany 
ceased  to  be  a  country  of  emigration,  and  became  a  country 
of  immigration.  Inasmuch  as  Germany  draws  her  immigrant 
supply  from  the  same  sources  as  the  United  States,  it  is 
evident  that  the  German  wage-earner  does  not  stay  away 
from  the  United  States  in  order  to  escape  the  competition 
of  the  immigrant  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  The 
transformation  of  Germany  from  an  emigrant-furnishing 
nation  to  a  country  of  immigration  is  the  direct  result  of  her 
recent  economic  development.  Until  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century  Germany  was  principally  an  agricultural 
country.  About  that  time  German  agriculture  reached  the 
point  where  the  growth  of  land  values  made  the  tradi- 
tional methods  of  the  peasant  unprofitable  and  necessi- 
tated a  transition  to  intensive  systems  of  cultivation. 
Many  a  peasant  who  lacked  the  requisite  capital  for  a 
.change  of  methods  was  forced  to  dispose  of  his  land  and  to 
seek  a  new  home  in  the  United  States.  In  Prussian  Poland 
this  crisis  came  in  the  70*5  and  the  early  8o's  and  drove  large 
numbers  of  Polish  peasants  to  the  United  States.  But  the 
rapid  growth  of  manufacturing  and  mining  during  the  last 
twenty-five  years  has  absorbed  the  whole  natural  increase  of 
the  rural  population.  At  the  same  time,  German  agricul- 
ture has  also  made  substantial  progress.  As  a  result,  there 
is  a  scarcity  of  agricultural  laborers  during  the  busy  season. 
The  combined  effect  of  all  these  causes,  coupled  with  the 
disappearance  of  cheap  lands  ir  X1"  TT-*A~J  o^^  % 
reflected  in  a  decline  of  the  em  ration  g 


Summary  Review  15 

laborers  to  the  United  States.  The  increased  demand  for 
labor  has  resulted  in  a  substantial  increase  of  the  rates  of 
wages,  simultaneously  with  a  marked  reduction  of  the  work- 
ing day.  These  gains  are  in  no  small  way  due  to  the  pro- 
gress of  organization  among  German  wage-earners,  which 
was  practically  prohibited  prior  to  1891.  Since  that  time 
the  membership  of  labor  organizations  has  advanced  by 
leaps  and  bounds,  leaving  behind  the  older  British  and 
American  trade-unions.  The  growth  of  the  labor  move- 
ment in  Germany  has  directly  and  indirectly  stimulated 
labor  legislation,  which  has  conferred  material  benefits  upon 
the  German  wage-earner.  Whereas  industrial  progress  in 
modern  times  has  generally  led  to  the  elimination  of  the 
independent  artisan  who  has  been  pushed  into  the  ranks  of 
wage-earners,  in  Germany  this  process  has  been  checked  by 
the  development  of  co-operation.  The  general  improve- 
ment of  the  economic  conditions  of  all  classes  of  the  working 
people  necessarily  affected  the  rate  of  emigration  for  the  past 
twenty  years. 

Yet  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  whije  immigration  from 
Germany  to  the  United  States  has  in  recent  years  been  much 
below  the  level  of  the  early  8o's,  the  average  annual  immi- 
gration from  Germany  was  much  higher  during  the  past 
decade  than  during  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  In  other  words,  German  immigration  increased 
with  the  increase  of  Italian  and  Slav  immigration  to  the 
United  States. 

Coming  next  to  Scandinavian  immigration  we  find  that  the 
number  of  breadwinners  coming  to  compete  in  the  American 
labor  market  virtually  reached  its  maximum  during  the 
past  decade.  The  only  change  is  that,  whereas  the  earlier 
Scandinavian  immigration  was  mostly  of  a  family  type, 
among  the  recent  Scandinavian  immigrants  single  persons 
vastly  predominate.  This  change  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  old  Scandinavian  immigrants  came  largely  to  settle  on 
wher^k  family  was  a  help,  while  the  new  Scandina- 
ntSglike  the  new  immigration  from  Southern 

.*.' 


16  Immigration  and  Labor 

and  Eastern  Europe,  come  chiefly  to  seek  industrial  employ- 
ment. That  Scandinavian  immigration  to  the  United 
States  was  in  no  way  affected  by  immigration  from  South- 
ern and  Eastern  Europe  is  evidenced  by  the  change  in 
the  direction  of  the  former:  whereas  prior  to  1890  the 
greater  part  of  Scandinavian  immigration  was  directed  to 
the  agricultural  States  of  the  Central  West  and  Northwest, 
since  1890  the  majority  of  the  Scandinavian  immigrants 
follow  the  current  of  immigration  from  Southern  and  East- 
ern Europe.  The  bulk  of  the  Scandinavian  immigrants 
are  laborers  from  agricultural  districts  or  farm  workers 
without  special  mechanical  skill.  It  is  these  unskilled 
Scandinavian  laborers  that  have  in  recent  years  sought 
employment  in  competition  with  unskilled  Slav  and  Italian 
laborers.  The  reason  why  the  number  of  these  Scandi- 
navian immigrants  has  not  grown  fast  enough  to  keep  pace 
with  the  needs  of  American  industry  must  be  sought  in  the 
economic  conditions  of  the  Scandinavian  countries.  Since 
the  opportunity  eventually  to  secure  a  homestead  in  the 
United  States  is  gone,  the  agricultural  laborer  who  is  dis- 
satisfied with  his  condition  must  seek  employment  in  indus- 
try. And  here  the  recent  industrial  progress  of  the  Scandi- 
navian countries  offers  him  many  an  opportunity  at  home. 

The  industrial  development  of  Sweden  is  contempo- 
raneous with  the  latest  progress  in  engineering,  which  has 
harnessed  the  water  power  furnished  in  abundance  by  her 
mountains.  The  growth  of  Swedish  industries  has  far  out- 
run the  increase  of  her  population.  As  a  result,  Sweden 
has  become  a  country  of  immigration.  The  immigration  to 
Sweden  has  in  recent  years  left  a  surplus  over  emigration. 

In  Denmark  the  last  fifteen  years  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury witnessed  a  rise  of  the  peasant  farmer,  due  chiefly  to 
the  rapid  spread  of  co-operation  in  all  branches  of  farming. 
The  progress  of  agriculture  has  attracted  immigration  to 
Denmark.  During  every  agricultural  season  considerable 
numbers  of  Polish  peasants  come  to  work  of  the  farms  in 
Denmark. 


Summary  Review  17 

While  the  wave  of  emigration  from  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland  to  the  United  States  has  receded  from  the  high- 
water  mark  reached  in  1880-1889,  yet,  eliminating  that 
exceptional  decade,  we  find  that  during  the  2O-year  period 
1890-1909,  marked  by  the  influx  of  immigrants  from  South- 
ern and  Eastern  Europe,  the  United  States  received  more 
immigrants  from  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  than  during  the 
20-year  period  1860-1879.  Another  fact  that  must  not  be 
lost  sight  of  is  the  recent  development  of  Canada,  Australia, 
New  Zealand,  and  South  Africa,  which  has  naturally  drawn" 
a  part  of  the  emigration  from  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 
The  policy  of  restriction  adopted  in  Australia,  New  Zealand, 
and  South  Africa  has  conferred  a  special  privilege  upon 
immigrants  of  British  nationality.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  governments  of  Canada  and  Australia  are  making  sys- 
tematic efforts  to  induce  and  assist  immigration  from  the 
mother  country.  That  the  financial  assistance  offered  to 
immigrants  from  the  United  Kingdom  has  diverted  a  part 
of  them  from  the  United  States  is  but  natural. 

The  decline  of  Irish  immigration  began  as  far  back  as 
•  1861.  It  rose  again  in  the  8o's,  in  the  turbulent  years  of 
the  Irish  Land  League  agitation,  and  once  more  during  the 
past  decade.  That  the  "new  immigration"  to  the  United 
States  was  not  the  cause  of  the  decline  of  Irish  immigration 
is  clear  from  the  fact  that  the  emigration  movement  from 
Ireland  to  other  countries  lias  also' declined,  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  of  those  Irish  who  did  emigrate  the  proportion 
destined  to  the  United  States  was  higher  during  the  period 
of  the  great  influx  of  immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe  than  in  1876-1890,  when  immigration  from  South- 
ern and  Eastern  Europe  was  negligible.  There  have  been 
forces  at  work  to  reduce  the  number  of  Irish  seeking  to 
better  their  condition  away  from  home.  The  great  Irish 
unrest  of  the  8o's  forced  the  British  Parliament  to  enact 
remedial  legislation,  which  gave  to  the  tenant-at-will  a  legal 
title  to  his  holding,  besides  reducing  his  rent,  and  converted 
about  one  third  of  the  tenants  into  land  proprietors.  These 


1 8  Immigration  and  Labor 

far-reaching  reforms  in  a  country  with  a  predominantly 
peasant  population  sufficiently  account  for  the  decline  of 
emigration  from  Ireland. 

It  can  be  seen  from  this  brief  survey  that  immigration 
from  Northern  and  Western  Europe  has  declined,  not 
because  the  condition  of  labor  has  deteriorated  in  the  United 
States,  but  because  those  countries  have  become  better 
homes  for  their  citizens. 

Another  popular  fallacy  is  the  theory  originated  by  Gen- 
eral Walker,  that  the  immigrants  have  displaced  unborn 
-generations  of  native  Americans.  It  rests  on  no  other  foun- 
dation than  a  computation  made  in  1 8 1 5  from  the  increase  of 
the  population  of  the  United  States  between  1790  and  1810. 
During  the  century  that  has  elapsed,  the  declining  birth- 
rate has  become  a  world-wide  social  phenomenon.  In  the 
Australian  Commonwealth,  with  her  vast  continent  as  yet 
unsettled,  with  a  purely  Anglo-Saxon  population  and  prac- 
tically no  immigration,  the  decline  of  the  birth-rate  has  been 
as  rapid  as  among  Americans  of  native  stock.  Prof.  Wilcox 
has  proved  by  an  analysis  of  population  statistics  that  the 
decrease  in  the  proportion  of  children  began  in  the  United 
States  as  early  as  1810.  The  native  birth-rate  has  declined 
with  the,  increase  of  the  urban  population  and  the  relative 
decrease  of  the  number  of  farmers.  The  rearing  of  children 
on  a  farm  requires  less  of  the  mother's  time  and  attention 
than  in  the  city.  Moreover,  the  child  on  a  farm  begins  to 
work  at  an  earlier  age  than  in  the  city.  A  numerous  family 
on  a  farm  has  the  advantages  of  a  co-operative  group,  where- 
as every  addition  td  the  family  of  the  wage-earner  or  of  the 
salaried  man  with  a  fixed  income  tends  to  lower  the  family's 
standard  of  living.  It  is  significant  that  the  decline  of  the 
birth-rate  is  universal  among  those  classes  which  are  scarcely, 
if  at  all,  affected  by  immigrant  competition.  Their  stand- . 
ard  of  living  is  higher  than  that  of  the  wage-earner.  Yet  it : 
is  precisely  the  desire  to  preservelhis  higher  standard  that 
accounts  for  the  practice  of  race  suicide.  Granting,  for  the 
sake  of  argument,  that  the  absence  of  immigration  in  the 


Summary  Review  19 

past  would  have  raised  the  native  wage-earner's  standard 
of  living  to  that  of  the  middle  class,  it  does  not  follow  that 
the  natural  increase  among  the  native-born  would  have 
sufficed  to  supply  the  needs  of  the  rapidly  expanding  indus- 
tries of  the  United  States. 

There  was  clearly  no  other  source  from  which  American  i 
industry  could  have  drawn  its  labor  supply  than  immigra- 
tion from  the  countries  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe. 
Without  the  immigrants  from  those  countries  the  recent 
development  of  American  industry  would  have  been  im- 
possible. 

An  invidious  distinction  is  drawn  between  the  old  and 
the  new  immigrants  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  the  bulk  of 
the  latter  are  incapable  of  any.  but  unskilled  work.  A  com- 
parative statistical  study  of  immigration  shows  that  the  old 
immigrants,  like  those  of  the  present  generation,  were  I 
mostly  unskilled  laborers  and  farm  hands.  The  proper-  \ 
tion  of  skilled  mechanics  has  at  no  time  within  the  past  fifty 
years  been  as  high  as  one  fourth  of  all  immigrant  bread- 
winners, for  the  very  obvious  reason  that  the  demand  in  the 
American  labor  market  has  been  mainly  for  unskilled 
laborers.  Invention  of  machinery  has  had  the  tendency  to  . 
reduce  the  demand  for  mechanical  skill,  and  most  of  that 
demand  has  been  supplied  by  native  Americans.  In  the 
industrial  army  the  commissioned  and  non-commissioned 
officers  are  outnumbered  by  the  privates.  It  is  a  mis- 
conception of  modern  industrial  organization  to  confuse 
lack  of  "skill,"  i.  e.,  ignorance  of  a  trade,  with  "low  ef- 
ficiency. ' '  If  every  immigrant  were  a  skilled  mechanic,  most 
of  them  would  nevertheless  have  to  accept  employment  as 
unskilled  laborers.  The  special  skill  of  the  engineer  would 
give  him  no  superiority  at  loading  coal  over  a  common 
laborer,  nor  would  the  ability  to  read  Shakespeare  in  the 
vernacular  assure  higher  wages  to  a  mule-driver. 

The  objection  to  the  unskilled$riHsr  grant  is  based  upon     . 
the  belief  that  because  of  his  lower  Standard  6*  living  he  is    ^ 
satisfied  with  lower  wages  than  the  American  or  the  older 


2O  Immigration  and  Labor 

immigrant.  It  is  therefore  taken  for  granted  that  the 
effect  of  the  great  tide  of  immigration  in  recent  years 
has  been  to  reduce  the  rate  of  wages  or  to  prevent  it  from 
advancing.  The  fallacy  of  this  reasoning  is  due  to  the  at- 
tempt to  compare  the  wages  and  standard  of  living  of  the 
unskilled  laborer  with  those  of  the  skilled  mechanic.  In 
order  to  prove  that  the  new  immigrants  have  introduced  a 
lower  standard  of  living,  the  latter  ought  to  be  compared 
with  the  standard  of  living  of  unskilled  laborers  in  the  past. 
Housing  conditions  have  been  most  dwelt  upon  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  standard  of  living  of  the  immigrant,  because 
they  strike  the  eye  of  the  outsider.  Historical  studies  of 
housing  conditions  show,  however,  that  congestion  was 
recognized  as  a  serious  evil  in  New  York  City  as  far  back  as 
the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  evil  was  not 
confined  to  the  foreign-born  population.  American-born 
working- women  lived  on  filthy  streets  in  poorly  ventilated 
houses,  crowding  in  one  or  two  rooms  which  were  used  both 
as  dwelling  and  workshop.  No  better  were  the  living  con- 
ditions of  the  daughters  of  American  farmers  in  the  small 
mill  towns  of  New  England.  They  lived  in  company 
houses,  half  a  dozen  in  one  attic  room,  without  tables,  or 
chairs,  or  even  washstands.  Comparative  statistics  of  house 
tenancy  in  Boston  show  that  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century  the  tenement-house  population  was  as  numerous, 
in  proportion,  as  in  our  day.  The  conversion  of  the  old 
single-family  residence  into  a  tenement  house,  where  a 
whole  family  was  jammed  in  every  room,  was  productive  of 
filth.  The  inconvenience  suffered  by  the  people  of  New 
York  City  during  the  recent  strike  of  the  street  cleaners  was 
but  a  faint  reminder  of  the  normal  conditions  of  the  immi- 
grant sections  of  New  York  or  Boston  half  a  century  ago. 
These  conditions  are  a  thing  of  the  past.  The  typical  tene- 
ment house  in  the  Jewish  and  Italian  sections  of  New  York 
to-day  is  a  decided  improvement  upon  the  dwellings  of  the 
older  immigrant  races  in  the  same  sections  a  generation  or 
two  ago.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  South,  where  many  of 


Summary  Review  21 

the  coal  mines  are  operated  without  immigrant  labor,  and 
native  white  Americans  are  employed  as  unskilled  laborers, 
their  homes  are  primitive  and  insanitary. 

It  is  evident  that  the  cause  of  bad  housing  conditions  isT 
not  racial,  but  economic.  Congestion  in  great  cities  is 
produced  by  industrial  factors  over  which  the  immigrants 
have  no  control.  The  fundamental  cause  of  congestion 
with  all  its  attendant  evils  is  the  necessity  for  the  wage- 
worker  to  live  within  an  accessible  distance  from  his  place 
of  work.  In  mining  towns  the  mine  company  is  usually  £he 
landlord,  and  the  mine  worker  has  no  choice  in  the  matter  of 
housing  accommodations.  In  so  far,  however,  as  housing 
conditions  might  affect  the  rates  of  wages  of  native  and  im- 
migrant workmen,  it  is  the  amount  of  rent,  not  the  equiva- 
lent in  domestic  comfort,  that  has  to  be  considered.  And 
here  it  is  found  that  immigrants  have  to  pay  the  same  rent 
as,  and  often  a  higher  rent  than,  native  American  wage- 
earners.  A  certain  proportion  among  the  immigrants  seek 
to  reduce  their  rent  by  taking  in  boarders,  but  the  practice 
is  not  universal,  and  the  wages  of  the  others  must  therefore 
provide  for  the  payment  of  normal  rent.  Moreover,  the 
recent  immigrants  are  mostly  concentrated  in  great  cities, 
where  rent  is  high,  while  the  native  American  workmen  live 
mostly  in  small  towns  with  low  rents. 

Nor  are  the  food  standards  of  the  recent  immigrant  in- 
ferior to  those  of  native  Americans  with  the  same  income. 
Meat,  the  most  expensive  article  of  food,  is  consumed  by 
the  Slav  in  larger  quantities  than  by  native  Americans. 
Rent  and  food  claim  by  far  the  greater  part  of  a  workman's 
wages.  It  is  thus  apparent  that  whatever  may  have  been 
the  immigrant's  standard  of  living  in  his  home  country,  his 
expenditure  in  the  United  States  is  determined  by  the  prices 
ruling  in  the  United  States.  Contrary  to  common  assertion, 
the  living  expenses  of  the  native  American  workman  in 
small  cities  and  rural  districts  are  lower  than  those  of  the 
recent  immigrants  in  1he  great  industrial  centers.  It  is 
therefore  not  the  recent  immigrant  that  is  able  to  underbid 


22  Immigration  and  Labor 

the  native  American  workman,  but  it  is,  on  the  contrary, 
the  latter  that  is  in  a  position  to  accept  a  cheaper  wage. 

There  is,  of  course,  a  difference  between  the  expenses  of  a 
single  and  of  a  married  workman.  The  necessary  expenses 
of  a  single  man  are  lower  than  those  of  one  who  has  a  family 
to  support,  and  a  large  proportion  of  the  recent  immigrants 
are  either  single  or  have  left  their  families  abroad.  But, 
while  an  unmarried  American  workman  may  either  save  or 
spend  the  difference,  the  recent  immigrant  is  obliged  to  save 
a  part  of  his  earnings.  He  must  repay  the  cost  of  his  own 
passage;  if  he  has  left  a  family  at  home,  he  must  save  up 
money  to  pay  for  their  passage,  besides  supporting  them  in 
the  meantime.  So  when  the  recent  immigrant  is  seen  to 
deny  himself  every  comfort  in  order  to  reduce  his  personal 
expenses  to  a  minimum,  it  is  a  mistake  to  assume  that  he 
will  accept  a  wage  just  sufficient  to  provide  for  his  own  sub- 
sistence. The  Italian  section  hand  who  lives  on  vegetables 
does  not  save  money  for  the  railroad  company.  The  eco- 
nomic interests  of  the  American  wage-earner  are  therefore 
not  affected  by  the  tendency  of  the  recent  immigrant  to  live 
as  cheaply  as  possible  and  to  save  as  much  as  possible. 
Whether  he  spends  his  wages  for  rent  and  dress,  or  saves  his 
money  to  buy  steamship  tickets  for  his  family;  whether  he 
invests  his  savings  in  a  home  in  the  United  States  or  sends 
them  to  his  parents  for  improving  the  home  farm,  his  wants 
in  one  case  are  as  urgent  as  in  the  other,  and  he  must 
demand  a  wage  which  will  enable  him  to  satisfy  them. 

On  the  other  hand,  though  the  standard  of  living  of  the 
native  or  Americanized  wage-earners  be  higher  than  that  of 
the  new  immigrants,  this  difference  is  not  necessarily  indica- 
tive of  a  higher  rate  of  wages:  the  higher  standard  is  very 
often  maintained  with  the  earnings  of  the  children,  whereas 
the  Southern  and  Eastern  European  immigrants  are  mostly 
young  people  whose  children  have  not  reached  working  age. 
The  supposed  differeneeim  the  standard  of  livin  n  there- 
fore have  no  effect  V^pon  the  comparative  rater>  .ges  of 
English-speakii  "~kmen  and  of  decent  imnr:  ts. 


Summary  Review  23 

But  it  is  argued  that  the  newly  arrived  immigrant  must 
have  work  at  once  and  is  therefore  glad  to  accept  any  terms. 
The  Immigration  Commission  after  a  study  of  the  earnings 
of  more  than  half  a  million  employees  in  mines  and  manu- 
factures, has  discovered  no  evidence  that  immigrants  have 
been  hired  for  less  than  the  prevailing  rates  of  wages. 

The  primary  cause  which  has  determined  the  movement 
of  wages  in  the  United  States  during  the  past  thirty  years 
has  been  the  introduction  of  labor-saving  machinery.  The  » 
effect  of  the  substitution  of  mechanical  devices  for  human 
skill  is  the  displacement  of  the  skilled  mechanic  by  the 
unskilled  laborer.  This  tendency  has  been  counteracted  in 
the  United  States  by  the  expansion  of  industry:  while  the* 
ratio  of  skilled  mechanics  to  the  total  operating  force  was 
decreasing,  the  increasing  scale  of  operations  prevented  an 
actual  reduction  in  numbers.  Of  course  this  adjustment  did 
not  proceed  without  friction.  While,  in  the  long  run,  there 
has  been  no  displacement  of  skilled  mechanics  J3y  unskilled 
laborers  in  the  industrial  field  as  a  whole,  yet  at  certain 
times  and  places  individual  skilled  mechanics  were  doubtless 
dispensed  with  and  had  to  seek  new  employment.  The 
unskilled  laborers  who  replaced  them  were  naturally 
engaged  at  lower  wages.  The  fact  that  most  of  these 
unskilled  laborers  were  immigrants  disguised  the  substance 
of  the  change — the  substitution  of  unskilled  for  skilled 
labor — and  made  it  appear  as  the  displacement  of  highly- 
paid  native  by  cheap  immigrant  labor. 

To  prove  that  immigration  has  virtually  lowered  the  rates 
of  wages,  would  require  a  comparative  study  of  wages  paid 
for  the  same  class  of  labor  in  various  occupations  before  and 
after  the  great  influx  of  immigration.  This,  however,  has 
never  been  attempted  by  the  advocates  of  restriction.  In 
fact,  the -chaotic  state  of  our  wage  statistics  precludes  any 
but  a  fragmentary  comparison  for  different  periods.  In  a 
general  way,  however,  all  available  data  for  the  period  of 
"  the  old  immigration"  agree  in  that  the  wages  of  unskilled 
laborers,  and  even  of  some  of  the  skilled  mechanics,  did  not 


24  Immigration  and  Labor 

fully  provide  for  the  support  of  the  wage-earner  and  his 
family  in  accordance  with  their  usual  standards  of  living. 
The  shortage  had  to  be  made  up  by  the  labor  of  the  wife 
and  children. 

If  the  tendency  of  the  new  immigration  were  to  lower  the 
rate  of  wages  or  to  retard  the  advance  of  wages,  it  should  be 
expected  that  wages  would  be  lower  in  great  cities  where  the 
recent  immigrants  are  concentrated,  than  in  rural  districts 
where  the  population  is  mostly  of  native  birth.  All  wage 
statistics,  concur,  however,  in  the  opposite  conclusion. 
Since  the  United  States  has  become  a  manufacturing  coun- 
try average  earnings  per  worker  have  been  higher  in  the 
cities  than  in  the  country.  The  same  difference  exists 
within  the  same  trades  between  the  large  and  the  small 
cities.  Country  competition  of  native  Americans  often 
acts  as  a  depressing  factor  upon  the  wages  of  recent 
immigrants.  This  fact  has  been  demonstrated  in  the 
clothing  industry,  in  the  cotton  mills,  in  the  coal  mines, 
etc. 

Furthermore,  if  immigration  tends  to  depress  wages, 
this  tendency  must  manifest  itself  in  lower  average  earnings 
in  States  with  a  large  immigrant  population  than  in  States 
with  a  predominant  native  population.  No  such  tendency, 
however,  is  discernible  from  wage  statistics.  As  a  rule, 
annual  earnings  are  higher  in  States  with  a  higher  per- 
centage of  foreign-born  workers. 

The  conditions  in  some  of  the  leading  industries  employ- 
ing large  numbers  of  recent  immigrants  point  to  the  same 
conclusions.  In  the  Pittsburgh  steel  mills  the  rates  of  wages 
of  various  grades  of  employees  have  varied  directly  with  the 
proportion  of  recent  immigrants.  The  wageL  of  the  aristo- 
crats of  labor,  none  of  whom  are  Southern  or  Eastern 
Europeans,  have  been  reduced  in  some  cases  as  much  as  40 
per  cent;  the  money  wages  of  the  skilled  and  semi-skilled 
workers,  two  thirds  of -whom  are  natives  or  old  immigrants, 
have  not  advanced  notwithstanding  the  increased  cost  of 
living,  while  the  wages  of  the  unskilled  laborers,  the  bulk 


Summary  Review  25 

of   whom   are   immigrants   from   Southern   and   Eastern 
Europe,  have  been  going  up.  0  " 

Another  typical  immigrant  industry  is  the  manufacture 
of  clothing.  The  clothing  industry  has  become  associated 
in  the  public  mind  with  the  sweating  system,  and  since  the 
employees  are,  with  few  exceptions,  immigrants  from  South- 
ern and  Eastern  Europe,  the  conclusion  is  readily  reached 
that  the  root  of  the  sweating  system  is  in  the  character  of 
the  new  immigration.  Yet  the  origin  of  the  sweating  sys- 
tem preceded  the  Jewish  clothing  workers  by  more  than  half 
a  century.  Throughout  the  second  quarter  of  the  past 
century  native  American  and  Irish  women  worked  in  the 
s,weat  shops  of  New  York,  Boston,  and  Philadelphia  for  only 
board  and  lodging,  or  even  for  board  alone,  depending  upon 
their  families  for  other  necessities,  whereas  the  Jewish  fac- 
tory girls  of  the  present  day  are  at  least  self-supporting. 

In  the  cotton  mills  of  New  England  the  last  quarter  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  when  the  operatives  were  practically  all 
of  the  English-speaking  races,  was  a  period  of  intermittent 
advances  and  reductions  in  wages ;  on  the  whole,  wages  re- 
mained stationary.  The  first  years  of  the  present  century, 
up  to  the  crisis  of  1908,  were  marked  by  the  advent  of 
the  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  into  the  cotton  mills, 
and  by  an  uninterrupted  upward  movement  of  wages. 
The  competition  of  the  cheap  American  labor  of  the 
Southern  cotton  mills,  however,  tends  to  keep  down  the 
wages  of  the  Southern  and  Eastern  European,  Armenian, 
and  Syrian  immigrants  employed  in  the  New  England 
mills. 

As  a  general  rule,  the  employment  of  large  numbers  of 
recent   immigrants   has   gone   together   with   substantial 
advances  in  wages.     This  correlation  between  the  move-^  " ' 
ments  of  wages  and  immigration  is  not  the  manifestation  of 
some  mysterious  racial  trait,  but  the  plain  working  of  the 
law  of  supply  and  demand.      The  employment  of  a  high^    , 
percentage  of  immigrants  in  any  section,  industry,  oroccupa-~  - 
tion,  is  an  indication  of  an  active  demand  for  labor  in  pv-.ss 


26  Immigration  and  Labor 

of  the  native  supply.     Absence  of  immigrants  is  a  sign  of 
a  dull  labor  market. 

To  be  sure,  the  rise  in  wages  is  paralleled  by  a  similar 
movement  of  prices.  The  employer  of  labor  seeks  to  recoup 
the  advance  in  wages  by  advancing  the  price  of  his  product 
to  the  consumer.  When  the  advance  in  the  price  of  manu- 
factured products  becomes  general,  the  wage-earner  as  a 
consumer  is  forced  in  effect  to  give  up  a  part  or  all  of  his 
gain  in  the  money  rate  of  wages.  The  increased  cost  of 
living  then  stimulates  further  demands  for  advances  in 
wages.  Since  combinations  of  capital  in  all  fields  of  industry 
have  reduced  competition  among  employers  of  labor  to  a 
minimum,  the  wage-earners  have  been  at  a  disadvantage  in 
this  continuous  bargaining.  In  general  it  has  been  observed 
by  economists  that  wages,  as  a  rule,  do  not  rise  as  fast  as 
prices.  That  this  rule  holds  true  irrespective  of  immigra- 
tion, is  illustrated  by  the  movement  of  wages  and  prices 
during  the  Civil  War.  With  the  exception  of  the  first  year, 
the  period  was  one  of  prosperity  in  every  branch  of  industry. 
The  wage-earners  were  apparently  in  a  favorable  situation. 
The  army  drew  hundreds  of  thousands  of  workers  from 
industrial  pursuits,  while  immigration  declined.  There 
were  at  that  time  no  immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe,  nor  was  there  any  oversupply  of  unskilled  labor. 
Yet  while  the  depreciation  of  the  currency  caused  a  rapid 
increase  in  the  cost  of  living,  money  wages  did  not  keep 
pace  with  prices.  In  other  words,  real  wages  decreased. 
It  must  be  noted  that  during  the  war  a  lively  labor  agitation 
was  going  on;  strikes  were  usually  successful.  Withal, 
labor  was  unable  to  win  increases  in  wages  commensurate 
with  the  increased  cost  of  living. 

Among  the  factors  tending  to  depress  the  rate  of  wages 

child  labor  holds  a  prominent  place.     The  most  significant 

fact  to  be  noted  concerning  the  relation  between  child  labor 

\and  immigration  is  the  large  proportion  of  children  em- 

.  ployed  in  factories  in  States  where  there  is  practically  no 

immigrant  population,  whereas  the  lowest  per  cent  is  found 


Summary  Review  27 

in  New  York,  which  is  overrun  by  immigrants.  The 
growth  of  manufacturing  industries  in  the  South  being  re- 
stricted by  the  natural  increase  of  her  native  population,  the 
manufacturers,  in  order  to  extend  their  operations,  must 
resort  to  the  employment  of  children,  as  did  their  prede- 
cessors in  New  England  a  century  ago,  before  immigration 
came  to  supply  the  needs  of  American  industry.  This  situ- 
ation is  by  no  means  confined  to  the  South.  Absence  of  ! 
foreign  immigration  has  created  a  demand  for  the  labor  of 
native  American  children  in  the  canneries  and  shoe  factories 
of  rural  and  semi-rural  Missouri.  The  principal  induce- 
ment for  locating  new  shoe  factories  in  rural  sections  of 
Missouri  appears  to  be  the  availability  of  the  cheap  labor 
of  native  American  women  and  children,  who  can  underbid 
the  male  immigrants  employed  in  the  shoe  factories  of 
Massachusetts.  On  the  other  hand,  taking  the  United 
States  as  a  whole,  we  find  that  during  the  ten-year  period 
from  1899  to  1909,  with  its  unprecedented  immigration,  the 
average  number  of  children  employed  in  factories  did  not 
increase,  while  their  relative  number  decreased. 

An  unerring  measure  of  the  effects  of  immigration  on\ 
labor  conditions  is  furnished  by  the  length  of  the  working 
day.  Aside  from  the  benefits  of  shorter  hours  for  the  physi- 
cal and  mental  well-being  of  the  wage-earner,  every  reduc- 
tion of  the  hours  of  labor,  even  when  not  accompanied  by 
an  increase  of  the  daily  or  weekly  wage,  is  equivalent  to  an 
increase  of  the  hourly  wage.  Going  back  to  the  beginnings 
of  the  factory  system  in  the  United  States,  when  the  opera- 
tives were  sons  and  daughters  of  American  farmers,  we  find 
that  the  hours  of  labor  in  the  factories  were  from  sunrise 
to  sunset,  the  same  as  on  the  farms  to-day.  The  retirement 
of  the  native  element  and  their  replacement  by  Irish  immi- 
grants was  followed  by  a  reduction  of  the  hours  of  labor  in 
the  textile  mills.  In  recent  vears  the  mills  have  been  run 
with  a  polyglot  help  made  up  of  representatives  of  all  the 
races  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  and  Asiatic  Turkey. 
Compared  with  the  time  when  the  operatives  were  mostly 


«8  Immigration  and  Labor 

Irish,  the  factory  workers  have  again  won  a  reduction  of  an 
hour  and  a  quarter  a  day.  One  need  not  take  an  optimistic 
view  of  labor  conditions  in  the  Massachusetts  textile  mills 
to  recognize  that  fifty-four  hours  a  week  is  a  great  stride  in 
advance  since  the  time  when  the  regular  working  day  was 
from  sunrise  to  sunset. 

The  effects  of  the  recent  immigration  upon  the  length  of 
the  working  day  can  be  best  observed  in  the  State  of  New 
York,  which  is  affected  by  immigration  more  than  any  other 
State  in  the  Union.  The  first  decade  of  the  present  century 
has  witnessed  the  greatest  volume  of  immigration  known  in 
the  history  of  the  United  States,  and  the  bulk  of  that  immi- 
gration has  come  from  the  countries  of  Southern  and  East- 
ern Europe.  And  yet  the  reports  of  the  factory  inspectors 
of  the  State  of  New  York,  covering  an  average  of  nearly  a 
.  million  factory  employees  annually,  show  for  that  decade  a 
I  gradual  reduction  of  the  hours  of  labor  in  the  State  of  New 
I  York.  Comparing  the  city  of  New  York  with  the  remain- 
der of  the  State,  we  find  that  the  population  of  Southern  and 
Eastern  European  birth  in  the  great  city  increased  during 
the  same  period  from  one  sixth  to  about  one  fourth  of  the 
total  population,  whereas  in  the  State  outside  the  city  of 
New  York  the  immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe  constituted  in  1910  only  one  sixteenth  of  the  total 
population;  yet  after  a  decade  of  "undesirable immigration " 
more  than  two  thirds  of  all  factory  operatives  in  New  York 
City  work  ten  hours  or  less  on  week  days  with  a  half  holiday 
on  Saturday,  whereas  in  the  remainder  of  the  State,  with  a 
working  population  predominantly  native,  the  majority 
still  work  longer  hours.  The  lower  wages  of  tiie  native 
American  wage-earners  in  small  cities  and  country  towns 
might  be  explained  by  the  lower  cost  of  living,  which  per- 
mits the  native  country  worker  to  enjoy  a  greater  measure 
of  comfort  than  the  more  highly  paid  recent  immigrant 
living  in  a  large  city.  But  the  longer  hours  of  the  native 
American  wage-earner  in  the  country  admit  of  no  such 
explanation. 


Summary  Review  29 

Among  the  many  charges  against  the  recent  immigrants 
not  the  least  important  one  is  that  their  ignorant  acquies- 
cence in  dangerous  and  unsanitary  working  conditions  is  a 
menace  to  the  safety  of  the  older  employees.  The  Immi- 
gration Commission  has  accepted  without  criticism  the 
employers'  defense  in  work  accidents,  viz.,  that  the  majority 
of  accidents  arise  from  the  negligence,  the  ignorance,  and 
inexperience  of  the  employees.  There  is,  however,  another 
side  to  the  question.  Many  experts  hold  that  most  of  the 
risks  are  humanly  preventable,  and  their  continuance  is  due 
to  economic  conditions  beyond  the  control  of  the  employee, 
Effective  prevention  of  accidents  in  mines  presupposes  a 
carefully  planned  equipment  involving  considerable  ex- 
pense. But  competition  forces  the  mine  operator  to  follow 
unsafe  mining  methods,  which  inevitably  result  in  unneces- 
sary sacrifice  of  human  life.  It  is  not  the  carelessness  of 
the  mine  workers,  but  the  carelessness  of  mine  operators  and 
their  representatives  that  is,  according  to  expert  opinion,  the 
cause  of  the  high  fatality  rate  in  American  mines.  Similar 
dangerous  conditions  once  existed  in  France  and  Belgium, 
but  they  were  removed  by  stringent  legislation  and  by  an 
effective  enforcement  of  the  law.  The  theory  which  shifts 
the  blame  for  accidents  from  the  mine  operator  to  the  Slav 
miner  tends  to  prevent  the  enactment  of  such  legislation  in 
the  United  States,^/ 

In  the  iron  and  steel  mills  there  is  the  same  popular  dispo- 
sition to  shift  the  responsibility  for  accidents  to  "the 
ignorant  foreigner,"  whereas  expert  opinion  views  the  tre- 
mendous speed  at  which  the  plants  are  run  as  the  real  cause 
of  danger.  The  greatest  risk  of  death  and  personal  injury  is 
assumed  by  railway  trainmen,  who  are  all  either  Americans 
or  natives  of  Northern  and  Western  Europe.  They  have 
strong  organizations  and  could  not  be  replaced  by  non- 
English-speaking  immigrants.  Yet  "acquiescence  in  dan- 
gerous and  unsanitary  working  conditions"  appears  to  be 
the  general  attitude  of  organized  and  unorganized  workers 
alike,  irrespective  of  nationality.  Obviously,  organized 


30  Immigration  and  Labor 

labor  does  not  feel  strong  enough  to  make  demands  which 
would  involve  large  outlays  by  employers  for  safe  equip- 
ment. 

Organization  of  labor  is  nowadays  generally  recognized 
in  the  United  States  as  the  most  effective  of  all  existing 
agencies  for  the  increase  of  wages  and  improvement  of  work- 
ing conditions.  It  would  therefore  be  a  cause  for  grave  con- 
cern if  it  were  true,  as  claimed,  that  the  recent  immigrants 
.were  not  organizable,  and  that  their  employment  threat- 
ened the  existing  labor  organizations  with  disruption. 
'f  The  fact  is,  however,  that  the  origin  and  growth  of  orga- 
nized labor  in  the  United  States  are  contemporaneous  with 
the  period  of  "the  new  immigration,"  and  that  the  immi- 
grants from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  are  the  backbone 
of  some  of  the  strongest  labor  unions.  A  notable  example 
is  the  coal-mining  industry,  where  the  mine  workers'  organi- 
zation has  gained  strength  only  since  the  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europeans  have  become  the  predominant  element 
among  them.  One  of  the  most  troublesome  problems  which 
the  organization  of  these  immigrants  has  had  to  face  has 
been  the  competition  of  the  unorganized  Americans  of 

.native  stock. 

"^  ^.  Before  1880  all  labor  organizations  were  small  in  member- 
ship and  their  effect  upon  economic  conditions  was  negli- 
gible. Like  everywhere,  during  the  infancy  of  organized 
labor,  a  union  would  spring  into  existence  under  the  impulse 
of  a  strike,  would  flourish  for  a  while,  if  successful,  and  would 
soon  disintegrate.  The  work  of  organization  has  since  been 
proceeding  at  an  ever  increasing  pace.  During  the  first 
decade  of  the  new  immigration,  1880-1890,  more  labor 
unions  were  organized  than  throughout  the  previous  history 

s-l  of  the  United  States.  The  majority  of  the  trade-unionists 
and  Knights  of  Labor  were  of  foreign  birth,  whereas  the 
native  Americans  contributed  less  Jhan  their  qftota  to  the 
membership  of  labor  organizations.  The  greatest  success 
rewarded  the  efforts  of  union  organizers  during  the  first 
decade  of  the  present  century,  the  membership  of  labor 


Summary  Review  31 


organizations  growing  faster  than  the  number  of  wage- 
earners.  Thus  the  greatest  activity  in  the  field  of  organi-  I 
zation  coincided  with  the  unparalleled  immigration  of  the  I 
past  decade.  The  best  field  for  observation  of  the  effects  of 
immigration  upon  trade-unionism  is  the  State  of  New  York, 
which  receives  more  than  its  proportionate  share  of  immi- 
grants from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  A  comparative 
study  of  trade-union  statistics  compiled  by  the  New  York 
Bureau  of  Labor  and  of  the  federal  immigration  statistics 
shows  that  union  membership  rises  and  falls  with  the  rise  »- 
and  fall  of  immigration.  The  fluctuations  of  union  mem- 
bership depend  upon  the  business  situation,  which  likewise 
determines  the  fluctuations  of  immigration.  The  harmoni- 
ous movement  of  immigration  and  organization  among 
wage-earners  is  thus  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  both  are 
stimulated  by  business  prosperity  and  discouraged  by  busi- 
ness depression. 

The  question  arises,  however,  whether  the  progress  of 
trade-unionism  would  not  have  been  greater  had  there  been 
no  immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  during 
the  past  decade  of  industrial  expansion.  An  answer  to  thil ' 
question  is  furnished  by  the  comparative  growth  of  trade- 
union  membership  in  New  York  and  in  Kansas.  The  ratio 
of  foreign-born  in  Kansas  has  been  steadily  decreasing  since 
1880.  At  the  same  time  Kansas  has  shared  in  the  recent 
industrial  expansion.  Statistics  show  that  the  relative 
number  of  organized  workmen  is  much  higher  in  New  York 
with  its  large  and  growing  Southern  and  Eastern  European 
population  than  in  Kansas,  where  more  than  nine  tenths  of 
the  population  are  of  native  birth. 

These  comparisons  prove  that  recent  immigration  has 
not  retarded  the  progress  of  trade-unionism,  except,  of 
course,  where  it  is  the  policy  of  the  unions  to  exclude  the 
recent  immigrants  by  prohibitive  initiation  dues  and  other 
restrictive  regulations  intended  to  limit  the  number  of  com- 
petitors within  their  trades. 

Language  is  nowadays  no  longer  a  bar  to  organization 


JL  - 


32  Immigration  and  Labor 

among  immigrants.  The  membership  of  every  union  in- 
cludes a  sufficient  number  of  men  of  every  nationality 
through  whom  their  countrymen  can  be  reached. 

Many  of  the  more  recent  immigrants  from  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europe  had  acquired  a  familiarity  with  the  prin- 
ciples of  organization  in  their  home  countries.  In  Italy 
organization  has  lately  made  rapid  progress  not  only  among 
industrial  workers,  but  also  among  agricultural  laborers. 
In  Russia,  previous  to  the  uprising  of  1905,  labor  organi- 
zations and  strikes  were  treated  as  conspiracies,  but  the 
revolutionary  year  1905  outmatched  the  labor-union  record 
of  any  other  country.  The  strikes  of  that  year  affected  one 
third  of  all  the  factories  employing  three  fifths  of  all  factory 
workers.  The  total  number  of  strikers,  at  a  conservative 
estimate,  exceeded  three  and  a  half  millions.  The  strikers 
drew  together  wage-earners  of  all  those  nationalities  which 
make  up  the  bulk  of  our  immigration  from  the  Russian  Em- 
pire: Hebrews,  Poles,  Lithuanians,  Russians,  and  Ukrain- 
ians.1 In  this  connection,  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  the 
organizations  of  clothing  workers  in  New  York  City,  nearly 
all  of  whom  are  Russian  and  Polish  Jews  and  Italians,  com- 
prise a  higher  proportion  of  the  total  number  employed  in 
the  industry  than  the  average  trade-union  in  the  United 
States. 

If  organized  labor  in  the  United  States  has  not  succeeded 
in  welding  together  a  majority  of  the  wage-earners,  the  fault 
is  neither  with  immigration  in  general,  nor  with  immigration 
from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  in  particular.  The 
primary  cause  is  the  substitution  of  machinery  for  human 
skill,  which  is  taking  the  ground  from  the  craft  union.  The 
latter,  however,  as  a  rule,  does  not  seek  to  organize  the  un- 
skilled laborers.  Situations  have  arisen  where  the  interests 
of  the  craft  union  have  been  antagonistic  to  organization 
among  the  unskilled.  That  organization  among  the  unskilled  j 

JThe  revolution  of  1917  has  made  organized  labor  a  part  of  the 
machinery  of  government.  . 


Summary  Review  33 

is  feasible,  however,  has  been  demonstrated  in  the  coal-mining 
industry,  "  -  +he  Lawrence  strike,  and  in  the  recent  strikes  of 
the  steel  workers. 

Another  obstacle  to  the  progress  of  trade-unionism  is  that 
the  principal  industries  to-day  are  controlled  by  combina- 
tions, which  have  reduced  competition  among  employers 
of  labor  to  a  minimum.  In  a  contest  of  endurance  between 
a  trust  and  a  trade-union,  the  former  is  able  to  hold  out 
longer,  since  it  can  shift  the  losses  to  the  consumers.  The 
only  successful  strikes  against  trusts  have  been  those  in 
which  the  majority  of  the  strikers  were  immigrants  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe,  viz.,  the  strikes  in  the  anthra- 
cite coal  mines  of  Pennsylvania  and  in  the  woolen  mills  of 
Lawrence. 

One  of  the  reasons  for  the  greater  power  of  resistance 
exhibited  by  the  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  is  the 
predominance  among  them  of  men  without  families.1  The 
single  European  wage-earner  who  manages  to  save  a  portion 
of  his  earnings  can  fall  back  on  his  savings,  if  necessary. 
This  relieves  the  pressure  upon  the  strike  fund.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  families  of  recent  immigrants,  being  inured 
to  the  most  simple  life  in  their  home  countries,  can  more 
easily  endure  the  hardships  of  a  strike  than  the  families  of 
native  American  wage-earners.  The  Southern  and  Eastern 
European  strikers  are  therefore  able  to  hold  out  longer  in  a 
wage  contest  than  the  native  wage-earner. 

The  defeat  of  many  strikes  is  charged  against  the  immi- 
grant, who,  though  supposedly  too  tractable  under  normal 
conditions,  is  said  to  be  inclined  to  violence  when  aroused. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  strike  riots  are  as  old  as  strikes  in  the 
United  States. 

1The  proportion  of  married  men  among  the  recent  immigrants 
employed  in  bituminous  coal  mines  varied  from  49.4  per  cent  to  77.2  per 
cent;  the  proportion  of  married  men  whose  families  were  living  abroad 
averaged  27.9  per  cent  for  all  races,  varying  from  19.5  to  80.4  per  cent. — 
Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  Tables  102  and  104. 


34  Immigration  and  Labor 

On  the  other  hand,  however,  the  United  Mine  Workers 

of  America,  whose  members  are  mostly  immigrants  from 

Southern  and  Eastern  Europe,  has  put  into  practical  opera- 

|  tion  an  industrial  parliament,  with  separate  representation 

ifor  employers  and  employees,  for  the  regulation  of  the  terms 
of  employment.  It  can  not  be  said  then  "as  a  general 
proposition  .  .  .  that  all  improvement  in  conditions  and  in- 
creases in  rates  of  pay  have  been  secured  in  spite  of  the 
presence  of  the  recent  immigrant."  1 

The  results  of  the  preceding  discussion  can  be  summed  up 
as  follows: 

(1)  Recent  immigration  has  displaced  none  of  the  native 
American  wage-earners  or  of  the  earlier  immigrants,  but  has 
only  covered  the  shortage  of  labor  resulting  from  the  excess 
of  the  demand  over  the  domestic  supply. 

(2)  Immigration  varies  inversely  with  unemployment; 
it  has  not  increased  the  rate  of  unemployment. 

(3)  The  standard  of  living  of  the  recent  immigrants  is 
not  lower  than  the  standard  of  living  of  the  past  generations 
of  immigrants  engaged  in  the  same  occupations.     Recent 
immigration  has  not  lowered  the  standard  of  living  of  Ameri- 
cans and  older  immigrant  wage-earners. 

(4)  Recent  immigration  has  not  reduced  the  rates  of 
wages,  nor  has  it  prevented  an  increase  in  the  rates  of  wages ; 
it  has  pushed  the  native  and  older  immigrant  wage-earners 
upward  on  the  scale  of  occupations. 

(5)  The  hours  of  labor  have  been  reduced  contempo- 
raneously with  recent  immigration:  s      * 

(6)  The  membership  of  labor  organizations  has  grown 
apace  with  recent  immigration;   the  new  immigrants  have 
contributed  their  proportionate  quota  to  the  membership 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  p.  541. — Since  the 
days  of  the  Immigration  Commission  another  experiment  in  industrial 
government,  inaugurated  by  recent  immigrants  in  the  clothing  factory 
of  Hart,  Schaffner  and  Marx,  has  attracted  wide  notice  among  labor 
leaders  and  social  workers. 


Summary  Review 

of  every  labor  organization  which  has  not  di. 
against  them,  and  they  have  firmly  stood  by  their  , 
dons  in  every  contest. 

^There  is  consequently  no  specific  "immigration  proble. 
There  is  a  general  labor  problem,  which  comprises  man> 
special  problems,  such  as  organization  of  labor,  reduction  of 
hours  of  labor,  child  labor,  unemployment,  prevention  of 
work-accidents,  etc.  None  of  these  problems  being  affected 
by  immigration,  their  solution  can  not  be  advanced  by 
restriction  or  even  by  complete  prohibition  of  immigration.  > 

The  advocates  of  restriction  are  conscious  of  the  fact  that  i 
without  immigration  the  industrial  expansion  of  the  past^ 
twenty  years  would  have  been  impossible.  But  they  be- 
lieve that  the  pace  of  progress  has  been  too  fast  and  that 
the  interests  of  labor  would  be  furthered  by  a  slower  devel- 
opment of  industry  which  would  dispense  with  Southern  and 
Eastern  European  unskilled  laborers.  This  was  the  gist  of 
the  recommendations  of  the  Immigration  Commission. 

The  weak  point  in  this  argument  is  that  it  takes  no  cogni- 
zance of  the  cardinal  principle  of  modern  division  of  labor, 
viz.,  that  in  every  industrial  establishment  there  is  a  fixed 
proportion  of  skilled  to  unskilled  laborers.  Were  the  expan- 
sion of  industry  to  slow  down  in  consequence  of  a  reduced 
supply  of  unskilled  labor,  the  demand  for  skilled  mechanics 
would  eventually  decline  in  proportion.  The  slow  growth  of 
industry  would  tend  to  curtail  the  opportunities  for  advance-* 
ment  of  the  wage-earners  who  are  already  here.  The  skilled 
crafts  whose  organizations  favor  the  exclusion  of  unskilled 
immigrants  would  be  the  first  to  suffer  in  consequence| 

On  the  other  hand,  the  unemployed  could  gain  nothing  »- 
from  a  slow  growth  of  industry.  Seasonal  and  cyclical 
variations  in  the  general  demand  for  labor,  as  well  as  varia- 
tions in  the  demands  of  individual  employers,  would  continue 
on  a  reduced  scale -of  national  production.  The  mere  ex- 
clusion of  immigrants  will  not  provide  employment  for  sail- 
ors in  the  winter,  or  for  the  full  winter  force  of  a  Wisconsin 


Immigration  and  Labor 

0  camp  in  the  summer;  nor  will  it  revolutionize  the 
A  of  fashion.  In  order  to  provide  regular  employment 
^r  all  workers,  it  would  be  necessary  to  run  all  industries 
upon  a  common  time  schedule,  like  railway  trains  are  run 
on  connecting  lines.  No  plan  of  such  a  readjustment  has  as 
yet  been  suggested  by  the  advocates  of  immigration  restric- 
tion. Certainly  an  adjustment  of  the  busy  and  slack  seasons 
of  a  quarter  of  a  million  factories  will  not  spring  up  spon- 
taneously from  an  act  of  Congress  closing  the  gates  against 
immigrants.  The  present -crisis,  which  has  followed  a  period 
with  immigration  reduced  to  insignificant  proportions,  dem- 
onstrates how  ineffectual  restriction  of  immigration  would  be 
as  a  remedy -against  unemployment  resulting  from  cyclical 
disturbances  of  capitalistic  industry. 

As  a  speculative  proposition,  it  seems  quite  plausible,  that 
f if  restriction  of  immigration  resulted  in  a  scarcity  of  labor, 
employers  would  be  forced  to  pay  scarcity  rates  of  wages. 
A  standing  refutation  of  this  theory  is  presented  by  the  con- 
dition which  actually  exists  in  the  United  States  throughout 
the  agricultural  sections.  Few  immigrants  seek  employment 
on  the  farms.  The  number  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Euro- 
pean farm  laborers  in  the  United  States  is  negligible.  More- 
over, there  is  a  constant  stream  of  native  labor  from  the  farms 
to  the  cities,  which  has  led  to  an  actual  decrease  of  the  rural 
population  in  many  agricultural  counties.  Farmers  generally 
complain  of  scarcity  of  farm  labor  during  the  agricultural 
season.  Nevertheless,  the  wages  of  farm  laborers  are  lower 
than  the  wages  of  unskilled  laborers  in  mines  and  mills  where 
recent  jmmigrants  predominate.  Scarcity  of  labor  has  not 
forced  the  farmer  to  pay  scarcity  wages,  but  has  merely  re- 
tarded the  growth  of  farming. 

I  The  World  War  offered  an  opportunity  to  test  the  effects 
pf  restriction  of  immigration  under  the  most  favorable  con- 
ditions. The  United  States  became  the  chief  producer  of 
war  supplies  for  the  allied  nations.  '  Beginning  with  the  spring 
of  1916  the  supply  of  labor  in  the  United  States  fell  short  of 


Summary  Review  37 

the  demand.  The  entrance  of  the  United  States  into  the 
war  withdrew  more  than  two  million  workers  from  industry. 
Officers  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  and  avowed 
friends  of  labor  were  put  in  charge  of  the  various  war  boards 
which  were  entrusted  with  the  function  of  regulating  wages 
in  the  leading  industries.  If  the  economic  condition  of  the 
American  wage-earner  could  be  improved  by  suspension  of 
immigration,  its  beneficial  effects  should  have  materialized 
during  the  war. 

Volumes  of  statistics  on  every  aspect  of  the  economic 
situation  during  the  war  period  have  been  published.  They 
show  a  growth'  of  production  much  in  excess  of  the  rate  of 
the  pre-war  years.  This  unparalleled  growth  of  industry  was 
marked  by  extraordinary  profits,  which  were  far  beyond 
anything  that  was  necessary  to  stimulate  initiative  and 
enterprise. 

At  the  same  time,  the  growth  of  population  lagged  behind  J 
the  industrial  expansion.  To  meet  the  abnormal  demand  for 
common  labor  caused  by  the  cessation  of  immigration,  the 
Secretary  of  Labor,  a  former  labor  leader,  was  obliged  to 
suspend  the  law  to  permit  mine  operators  and  other  employers 
in  the  Southwest  to  import  Mexican  laborers  under  contract. 

This  abnormal  condition  brought  about  an  unprecedented  I 
mobility  of  labor.  Reports  from  every  section  of  the  country 
to  Bradstreefs  complained  of  employees  "constantly  being 
enticed  from  their  jobs  by  competition  between  employers."1 
Employers  were  offering  high  rates  of  wages  to  union  and  non- 
union workers  alike. 

What,  fhen,  was  the  effect  of  this  most  favorable  com- 
bination of  economic  factors  upon  the  condition  of  the  Ameri- 
can wage  worker? 

In  such  war-time  industries  as  munition  plants,  some  of 
the  occupations  enjoyed  increases  in  wages  more  than  suffi- 
cient to  compensate  for  the  increase  in  the  cost  of  living. 

1  The  Literary  Digest,  December  I,  1917,  P-  80. 


38  Immigration  and  Labor 

On  the  other  hand,  the  wages  of  the  railroad  workers,  coal 
miners,  and  farm  laborers,  lagged  behind  the  increase  in 
j  prices.  On  the  whole,  wages  did  not  keep  pace  with  the 
increasing  cost  of  living.  The  workers  merely  struggled  to 
keep  their  old  standards  of  living,  and  even  in  this  struggle 
they  did  not  always  succeed. 

The  most  telling  corroboration  of  the  decline  in  real  wages 
is  furnished  by  the  investigations  of  medical  authorities, 
which  show  a  decided  increase  of  the  proportion  of  underfed 
school  children  during  the  World  War. 

We  have  thus  witnessed  a  repetition  of  the  labor  conditions 

which  prevailed  during  the  Civil  War.    This  lagging  of  wages 

/behind  the  advancing  cost  of  living  cannot  be  explained  by 

i  the  alleged  submissiveness  of  the  immigrant  wage- workers, 

Who  are  said  to  be  willing  to  acquiesce  in  the  terms  offered 

to  them  by  the  employers.    The  statistics  of  strikes  during 

the  World  War  show  that  during  the  three  years  1916-1918 

the  number  of  strikes  per  year  was  more  than  twice  the 

annual  average  for  the  period  from  1881  to  1905.    More  than 

four  fifths  of  the  war-time  strikes  were  led  by  unions.    The 

annual  average  number  of  strikers  rose  to  the  unprecedented 

figure  of  1,310,000.    Moreover,  during  the  war,  the  principle 

of  collective  bargaining  was  recognized,  under  the  pressure 

of  the  government,  by  all  employers  engaged  on  government 

orders  or  in  the  production  of  essentials. 

That  the  foreign  worker  can  not  be  held  responsible  for  the 
decline  of  real  wages  is  further  proved  by  the  fact  that  the 
real  wages  of  common  laborers  in  the  iron  and  steel  industry, 
most  of  whom  are  foreign  born,  went  up,  whereas  those  of 
locomotive  firemen,  most  of  whom  are  native-born  Ameri- 
cans, declined  to  a  point  much  below  the  minimum  budget 
under  American  standards. 

Among  the  potent  factors  in  the  decline  of  real  wages  must 

/  be  noted  the  movement  of  labor  from  agriculture  to  urban 

1  industries.     As  a  result,  agricultural  "production  during  the 

war  remained  almost  stationary,  while  the  demand  for  bread- 


Summary  Review  39 

stuffs  was  increased  by  exports  abroad.    The  big  interests 
which  control  the  produce  market  were   thereby  enabled 
to  raise  the  prices  of  food.    What  the  wage-earner  gained  in  i 
money  wages  he  was  forced  to  surrender  in  the  higher  prices  j 
of  necessities  of  life.  . 

Let  us  now  examine  what  were  the  substitutes  for  immi- 
grant labor  during  the  war  years.  The  movement  of  workers 
from  agriculture  to  urban  industries  has  already  been  ad- 
verted to.  Public  attention  was  attracted  by  the  migration! 
of  Negroes  from  the  agricultural  South  to  the  industrialj 
North.  The  volume  of  that  migration  is  officially  estimated 
at  nearly  half  a  million.  Agricultural  regions  of  the  Southern 
states  began  to  suffer  for  want  of  the  Negro  worker.  Another 
substitute  for  immigrant  labor  was  found  in  the  increased 
nr\£\nyr$er\t  QJ  jwmrTen^a£idchildrer>.  The  main"torce  which 
was  driving  childrenlnto  inclustryrwas  the  excessive  cost  of 
living.  Labor  commissioners  and  factory  inspectors  com- 
plained of  the  difficulty  experienced  during  the  war  years  in 
administering  child-labor  laws.  The  scarcity  of  adult  labor 
made  the  employer  ready  to  take  minors  into  his  employ. 

What,  then,  is  the  outlook  in  the  ligl^of  the  experience  of 
labor  in  the  late  war?  We  are  passmg* 'through  one  of  the 
cyclical  disturbances  of  modern  industry  with  Jtheir  attend- 
ant acute  unemployment.  But  this  ericas  will-be  over,  and 
American  industry  wiH~resume.sits  usual  course.  If  restric- 
tion of  immigration  is  to  become  the  settled  policy  of  the 
United  States,  substitutes  for  immigrant  labor  will  be  sought. 

The  mines  and  mills  of  the  Southern  states  which  have 
failed  to  attract  immigrants  utilize  the  labor  of  farmers  and 
their  sons.  The  millions  of  tenant-farmers  offer  great  pos- 
sibilities as  an  industrial  reserve  available  during  the  winter 
months.  The  farm  being  their  main  source  of  subsistence, 
they  have  been  willing  to  offer  their  labor  during  the  idle 
winter  months  more  cheaply  than  freshly  landed  immigrants. 
The  efforts  of  trade-union  organizers  among  this  class  of 
English-speaking  workers  have  met  with  scant  success.  The 


39a  Immigration  and  Labor 

substitution  of  the  cheap  labor  of  the  American  farmer  foi 
the  labor  of  the  Slav  or  Italian  immigrant,  would  tend  to 
weaken  the  unions  and  to  keep  down  wages.  A  stimulated 
movement  of  labor  from  the  farm  to  the  factory  would  check 
the  growth  of  farming;  the  prices  of  foodstuffs  would  rise  in 
consequence,  which  would  tend  to  offset  the  advantages  to 
the  wage-earners  from  a  possible  rise  of  money  wages. 

The  discontinuance  of  fresh  supplies  of  immigrant  labor 
for  the  mills  and  factories  of  New  England  would  give  a 
new  impetus  to  the  establishment  of  factories  in  the  South, 
where  there  is  an  abundant  supply  of  child  labor. 

Still,  should  all  the  substitutes  for  immigration  prove  in- 
adequate, it  does  not  necessarily  follow  that  scarcity  prices 
would  rule  in  the  American  labor  market.  It  must  be  borne 
in  mind  that  capital  is  international.  Billions  of  American 
capital  are  already  invested  in  foreign  enterprises.  Hereto- 
fore these  investments  could  not  compare  with  the  profits  of 
American  industries  annually  reinvested  at  home/  If,  how- 
ever, a  permanent  scarcity  of  labor  were  created  in  the 
United  States,  more  American  capital  would  seek  investment 
abroad.  The  increased  investment  of  American  capital  in 
the  industrial  development  of  foreign  countries,  with  cheap 
labor,  must  eventually  react  upon  labor  conditions  in  the 
United  States.  Certain  of  the  most  important  American  in- 
dustries depend  in  part  upon  the  export  trade.  A  scarcity 
of  labor  in  the  United  States  would  induce  many  American 
manufacturers  to  follow  the  example  of  their  European  com- 
petitors, who  have  found  it  more  profitable  to  establish  fac- 
tories in  foreign  countries  than  to  export  their  products  to 
those  countries.  It  is  learned  from  an  official  report  of  the 
Commercial  Secretary  of  the  British  Embassy  in  Berlin,  that 
arrangements  have  been  in  progress  between  American  capi- 
talists and  German  corporations,  looking  toward  the  invest- 
ment of  American  capital  in  German  industry.  There  are 
other  reports  to  the  same  effect.  Such  an  emigration  of 
American  capital  would  materially  affect  the  export  trade  of 


Summary  Review 

the  United  States  and  eventually  cut  off  the  avenues  of  em-- 
ployment  for  a  number  of  American  wage-earners. 

It  is  evident  that  while  restriction  of  immigration  can  limit 
the  supply  of  labor,  It  is  powerless  to  prevent  a  corresponding 
limitation  of  the  demand  for  labor. 

The  true  cause  of  the  decline  of  real  wages  during  the  late 
war  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  advances  in  wages  are  the 
outcome  of  the  slow  process  of. collective  bargaining,  with 
occasional  industrial  warfare,  whereas  the  prices  of  commodi- 
ties are  controlled  by  monopolistic  combinations,  which 
promptly  shift  every  advance  in  wages  to  the  consumer. 
Thus  the  rise  of  wages  in  one  industry  or  occupation  is,  in 
effect,  charged  up  to  the  working  class  as  a  whole.  What  is 
wanted  in  order  to  secure  to  the  worker  a  real  advance  in 
wages  is  regulation  of  profits  in  the  interest  of  the  consumers, 
of  whom  the  wage-earners  are  the  most  numerous  element. 
Restriction  of  the  supply  of  labor  does  not  touch  the  problem 
of  price  control.  Immigration  laws  can  prevent  the  American 
capitalist  from  employing  foreign  labor  in  the  United  States. 
But  he  may  find  it  as  profitable  to  employ  the  same  labor  in 
Europe  ;n  the  manufacture  of  goods  for  the  world  market. 
The  reduction  of  the  supply  of  labor  will  be  neutralized  by  a 
reduction  of  the  demand  for  labor  in  the  United  States. 


PART  II. 

TOPICAL  ANALYSIS 
CHAPTER  I 

STATEMENT  OF  THE  QUESTION 

A  STUDY  of  the  immigration  question  involves  an  ex- 
amination of  every  important  phase  of  American  eco- 
nomic, political,  and  social  life.  There  is  scarcely  an  ailment 
of  our  body  politic  that  is  not  diagnosed — in  prose  and 
in  verse — as  the  effect  of  unrestricted  immigration.  The 
immigrants  are  blamed  for  unemployment,  female  and  child 
labor,  the  introduction  of  machinery,  unsafe  coal  mines, 
lack  of  organization  among  wage-earners,  congestion  in 
great  cities,  industrial  crises,  inability  to  gain  a  controlling 
interest  in  stock  corporations, J  pauperism,  crime,  insanity, 
race  suicide,  gambling,  the  continental  Sunday,  parochial 
schools,  atheism,  political  corruption,  municipal  misrule. 
The  latest  count  in  this  long  indictment  is  the  McNamara 
conspiracy,  which  a  noted  sociologist  has  somehow  connec- 
ted with  unrestricted  immigration.2  Not  only  has  "recent 
immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe"  lowered 
the  American  standard  of  living,  but  it  threatens  to  lower 
"the  average  stature  of  the  American. "3 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  16,  p.  655. 
*  Prof.  E.  A.  Ross,  in  The  Survey,  December  30,  1911,  p.  1425. 
»  Robert  Hunter:  Poverty,  p.  269. 

40 


Statement  of  the  Question  41 

It  is  conceded  that  in  the  past  immigration  has  been  a 
material  factor  in  the  economic  development  of  the  United 
States.  It  is  claimed,  however,  that  the  new  immigrant 
races  are  of  a  different  social  type  lacking  the  sturdy  quali- 
ties of  the  old  immigration.  * '  In  the  early  years  of  immigra- 
tion, when  it  was  difficult,  if  not  actually  dangerous,  to  come 
to  the  United  States,  there  was  a  natural  selection  of  the 
best  and  hardiest  inhabitants  of  the  old  world,  men  willing 
to  risk  their  all  in  going  to  a  new  country."  x .  The  pioneers 
of  those  days  were  eager  for  an  opportunity  to  develop 
the  untouched  resources  of  a  new  land  and  to  advance 
the  march  of  civilization  into  the  wilderness.  The 
new  immigrant,  on  the  contrary,  is  attracted  by  the 
glamor  of  the  city.  To  be  sure,  a  large  percentage  of  the 
new  immigration  comes  from  the  farming  sections  of 
Europe ;  but  brought  up,  as  they  are,  amidst  the  congestion 
of  the  small  agricultural  towns  of  the  old  world,  these  new 
immigrants  recoil  at  the  isolation  of  the  American  farm  and 
prefer  to  crowd  in  the  congested  districts  of  the  large  manu- 
facturing cities. 

The  cure  for  the  evils  of  immigration  upon  which  all  seem 
to  be  agreed  is  some  method  of  selection  which  would  admit 
all  desirable  immigrants  and  keep  out  the  "undesirable." 
There  is,  however,  no  authoritative  definition  of  a  "de- 
sirable" and  an  "undesirable "  immigrant.  Mr.  Prescdtt  F. 
Hall,  Secretary  of  the  Immigration  Restriction  League, 
regards  as  "undesirable  immigration"  that  " which  .fe  ig- 
norant of  a  trade,"2  while  another  writer  maintains  that 
the  races  having  the  highest  percentages  of  unskilled 
laborers  are  the  most  desirable,  because  they  do  not  com- 
pete with  American  mechanics,  but  men  who  are  "skilled  in 
tailoring,  shoemaking,  baking,  or  other  trades  which  do  not 
require  much  physical  strength  ...  are  undesirable  immi- 
grants," because  "they  enter  into  direct  competition  with 

1  John  Mitchell :    Organized  Labor,  p.  1 77. 

'Prescott  F.  Hall:  "Selection  of  Immigration."  Annals  of  the 
American  Academy  of  Social  and  Political  Science,  July,  1904,  P-  i?5. 


&  Immigration  and  Labor 

the  American  mechanic."1  Again  Mr.  Hall  would  treat 
as  "undesirable  immigration"  that  "which  is  averse  to 
country  life  and  tends  to  congregate  in  the  slums  of  large 
cities,"  though  "if  our  recent  immigrants  were  able  and 
willing  to  go  to  the  West  and  South,  these  States  do  not 
want  them."2  Along  with  the  Southeastern  European 
immigrant  who  is  accordingly  not  wanted  either  in  the  large 
cities,  or  in  the  agricultural  West  and  South,  the  same 
author  would  class  as  "undesirable"  all  immigration 
"which  fails  to  assimilate  in  a  reasonable  time."3 

Prof.  Mayo-Smith  is  more  specific  in  his  definition  and 
favors  the  selection  of  immigrants  with  a  view,  among  other 
things,  to  the  preservation  of  the  "social  morality  of  the 
Puritans."4 

With  respect  to  assimilation,  conditions  are  said  to  have 
undergone  a  material  change.  The  old  immigrants,  scat- 
tered amidst  the  native  American  population,  were  quickly 
assimilated.  Moreover,  they  were  practically  all  of  Teuton 
and  Celtic  stock  and  came  from  countries  with  a  represen- 
tative form  of  government.  The  recent  immigrants,  on  the 
other  hand,  have  had  no  training  in  self-government  at 
home,  and  being  herded  together  in  foreign  colonies,  out  of 
touch  with  native  Americans,  they  are  incapable  of  assimi- 
lation and  present  a  growing  danger  to  the  integrity  of 
American  democratic  institutions.5 

According  to  some  students,  this  country  is  facing  a  new 

xDr.  Allan  McLaughlin:  "Distrust  of  the  Immigrant."  Popular 
Science  Monthly,  January,  1903,  p.  232. 

2  Prescott  F.  Hall,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  175,  179.  *  Ibid.,  p.  175. 

*  Richmond  Mayo-Smith:  Emigration  and  Immigration,  p.  5. 

sA  writer,  discussing  the  "perils"  of  "un-American  immigration* 
in  1894,  gave  warning  that  "if  foreign  immigration  continues  at  the 
present  rate  and  such  immigration  continues  to  come  from  Middle, 
Southern,  and  Northeastern  Europe,  in  1900  the  Anglo-Saxon  and 
Anglo-Saxon  institutions  will  no  longer  J&e  the  dominant  powers  in 
moulding  American  life  and  legislation." — Rena  M.  Atchison,  Un- 
American  Immigration:  Its  Present  and  Future  Perils,  p.  148.  (Chicago 
1894.) 


Statement  of  the  Question  43 

race  problem,  similar  to  the  negro  problem.  In  the  opinion 
of  a  member  of  the  Immigration  Commission  the  Southern 
Italian  is  not  "a  white  man,"  nor  is  the  Syrian.1  The 
presence  of  these  races  in  large  numbers  among  the  working 
forces  of  our  mines  and  mills  has  attached  a  social  stigma  to 
certain  occupations;  as  a  result  of  this  race  prejudice  the 
native  American  workmen  have  withdrawn  from  those 
employments  where  they  must  work  side  by  side  with  recent 
arrivals  and  overcrowd  the  less  remunerative,  but  more 
respectable  occupations.2 

Still  the  fact  is  that  while  the  root  of  all  evil  is  sought  in 
the  racial  make-up  of  the  new  immigration,  as  contrasted 
with  the  old,  every  complaint  against  the  immigrants  from 
Eastern  and  Southern  Europe  is  but  an  echo  of  the  com- 
plaints which  were  made  at  an  earlier  day  against  the  then 
new  immigration  from  Ireland,  Germany,  and  even  from 
England.  As  observed  by  the  Industrial  Commission  a 
decade  ago,  "on  the  whole,  it  does  not  seem  that  the  newer 
immigration  offers  any  greater  or  more  serious  problems 
than  the  old,  except  in  so  far  as  they  add  to  the  total 
numbers . " 3  A  retrospective  view  of  immigration  will  show 
the  problems  presented  by  a  polyglot  population  to  be  by 
no  means  peculiar  to  our  own  day.  If  "assimilation"  is 
taken  to  mean  the  substitution  of  the  English  language  in 
daily  intercourse  for  the  mother  tongue  of  the  immigrant, 
then  a  century  of  experience  proves  it  to  be  an  unattainable 
ideal.  But,  if  "assimilation"  means  an  understanding  of 

1  Hearings  before  the  House  Committee  on  Immigration  and  Natural- 
ization.    6ist  Congress.     Testimony  of  Hon.  John  L.  Burnett,  of  Ala- 
bama, p.  407.     In  1885,  in  reply  to  inquiries  sent  out  by  the  Iowa 
Bureau  of   Labor  Statistics,  a  laboring  man  complained  that  "the 
Bohemians  .  .  .  will  get  a  job  in  preference  to  a  white  man."     (VI. 
Biennial  Report,  Iowa  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  p.  189.)     Since  that 
time  the  Bohemians  have  been  advanced  in  the  publications  of  the 
Immigration  Restriction  League  to  a  place  among  the  "desirable"  im- 
migrants from  Northern  and  Western  Europe. 

2  Jenks  and  Lauck:  The  Immigration  Problem,  pp.  75-76- 
a  Reports  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  491. 


44  Immigration  and  Labor 

American  institutions,  it  will  readily  occur  to  the  student 
that  one  of  the  standard  works  on  the  constitutional  history 
of  the  United  States  was  written  in  German  by  von  Hoist, 
an  alumnus  of  a  Russian  university,  and  another  standard 
book  on  the  organization  of  American  political  parties  was 
written  in  French  by  Ostrogorsky,  a  Russian  Jew.  The 
politician  who  comes  in  closest  personal  contact  with  the 
mass  of  citizenship  has  long  since  adjusted  himself  to  the 
conditions  created  by  immigration  and  finds  no  difficulty 
in  presenting  the  issues  and  the  candidates  of  his  party  to  a 
mixed  constituency  in  a  variety  of  languages.  Moreover, 
a  deeper  insight  into  the  social  life  of  the  immigrant  will  dis- 
cover powerful  forces  making  for  social  assimilation,  in  those 
very  institutions  which  are  popularly  frowned  upon  as 
tending  to  perpetuate  the  isolation  of  the  foreigner  from 
American  influences.  The  newspaper  printed  in  a  foreign 
language  is  virtually  a  sign  of  Americanization;  the  Lithu- 
anian peasant  at  home  had  no  newspaper  in  his  own 
language;  the  demand  for  a  newspaper  has  grown  on 
American  soil.  That  it  apparently  serves  its  purpose,  is 
conceded  by  prominent  advocates  of  restriction.1  The 
theater  where  the  immigrant  sees  a  play  produced  in  his 
mother  tongue  is  likewise  the  outgrowth  of  the  democratic 
spirit  of  American  social  life ;  the  theater  in  Eastern  Europe 
caters  only  to  the  upper  classes.  The  numerous  foreign- 
speaking  organizations  owe  their  existence  to  the  political 
freedom  of  the  United  States.  It  is  through  all  these  social 
agencies  using  his  native  tongue  as  a  medium  of  communi- 
cation, that  the  immigrant  who  is  not  a  scholar  is  enabled 
to  partake  of  the  advantages  of  American  civilization. 

It  is  realized  by  the  clear-sighted  advocates  of  restriction 
that  "too  rnuch  emphasis,  in  the  discussion  of  immigration, 
within  recent  years,  has  been  placed  upon  the  social  and 
political  results  of  recent  immigration.  The  problem  at 

1  "So  large  a  number  of  periodicals  are  published  in  various  foreign 
tongues  that  it  is  by  no  means  essential  that  the  immigrant  read  Eng- 
lish. " — Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.,  p.  32. 


Statement  of  the  Question  45 

present  is  really  fundamentally  an  industrial  one."1  The 
reason  the  appeals  for  restriction  to-day  find  a  more  favor- 
able hearing  than  in  the  days  of  the  Know-Nothing  agita- 
tion, is  the  growth  of  organized  labor,  which  demands 
restriction  of  immigration  as  an  extension  of  the  protective 
principle  to  the  home  market  in  which  "hands" — the 
laborer's  only  commodity — are  offered  for  sale.  All  doc- 
trinaire theories  of  a  civic  character  are  accepted  by  orga- 
nized labor  in  so  far  as  they  may  be  helpful  in  its  campaign 
for  restriction  of  immigration.  The  real  attitude  of  orga- 
nized labor,  however,  is  candidly  stated  in  the  testimony 
of  Mr.  Roe,  representing  the  railroad  brotherhoods,  before 
the  House  Committee  on  Immigration  and  Naturaliza- 
tion: "Every  foreign  workman  who  comes  into  this 
country  takes  the  place  of  some  American  workingman  who 
wants  higher  wages  and  a  higher  standard  of  living  than  the 
foreigner."2 

All  opposition  to  restriction  of  immigration  is  viewed  with 
suspicion  by  organized  labor,  as  emanating  from  the  employ- 
ing class  or  from  the  steamship  companies,  which  are  hiding 
selfish  interests  under  a  cloak  of  humanitarianism.  This 
view  overlooks  the  millions  of  foreign-born  wage-earners 
who  are  bound  by  family  ties  with  millions  of  workers  across 
the  sea  and  want  them  to  share  in  the  opportunities  which 
this  country  holds  out  to  the  immigrant  for  bettering  his 
economic  and  social  conditions.3  Their  appeal  from  the 
present-day  policy  of  restriction  to  old  American  traditions 
springs  from  personal  affection  and  friendship. 

It  must  be  understood,  however,  that  the  United  States 
no  longer  recognizes  the  Kantian  "ideal  demand  of  the  new 

1  Ibid.,  p.  197. 

a  H.  R.  6ist.  Congress.  Hearings  before  Committee  on  Immigra- 
tion  and  Naturalization,  p.  254. 

s  The  claim  of  the  pessimists,  that  the  condition  of  the  immigrant 
workman  in  the  United  States  is  to-day  no  better  than  in  his  native 
country  (Robert  Hunter:  Poverty,  p.  280),  is  refuted  by  the  millions, 
of  European  workers  who  come  to  this  country  to  stay  and  send  for 
their  relatives. 


46  Immigration  and  Labor 

law  of  nations," x  that  the  individual  may  have  the  freedom 
of  the  world  to  choose  his  domicil,  regardless  of  state  boun- 
daries. The  enactment  of  the  Chinese  exclusion  law  signa- 
lized a  reversion  of  the  United  States  to  the  old  doctrine  of 
sovereignty,  which  invests  the  state  with  the  absolute  right 
to  exclude  aliens  from  its  territory.  In  opposition  to  the 
cosmopolitan  theory  underlying  the  free  immigration  policy 
of  the  past,  the  policy  of  restriction  has  elaborated  its  own 
social  philosophy  in  the  following  words  of  Mr.  John 
Mitchell: 

To  a  large  extent  the  progress  of  nations  can  best  be  secured  by  the 
policy  of  seclusion  and  isolation.  By  means  of  barriers  which  regulate, 
but  do  not  prohibit,  immigration,  the  various  countries  of  Europe  and 
America  can  individually  work  out  their  salvation,  and  a  permanent 
increase  in  the  efficiency  and  remuneration  of  the  workers  of  the  world 
can  thus  be  obtained.  By  the  maintenance  of  these  barriers  the  best 
workingmen  in  each  country  can  rise  to  the  top,  and  the  great  mass  of 
the  workingmen  can  secure  a  larger  share  of  the  wealth  produced. 2 

It  goes  without  saying  that  this  theory  of  progress  can 
lay  no  claim  to  originality,  "the  policy  of  seclusion  and 
isolation"  having  been  consistently  followed  for  many 
centuries  by  China. 

Without  venturing,  however,  into  the  realm  of  sociologi- 
cal speculation,  and  allowing  that  if  ' '  every  foreign  work- 
man who  comes  into  this  country  takes  the  place  of  some 
American  workingman"  immigration  ought  to  be  pro- 
hibited, the  unprejudiced  student  of  the  immigration  ques- 
tion will  demand  proof  that  the  premises  are  true.  When  a 
million  workers  are  reported  to  be  out  of  employment  and 
an  equal  number  of  immigrants  are  shown  to  have  been 
admitted  during  the  same  year,  the  man  in  the  street  is  apt 
to  jump  to  the  conclusion  that  the  new  arrivals  have  dis- 

1 J.  C.  Bluntschli:  Die  Bedeutung  und  die  Fortschritte  des  modern  en 
Volkerrechts,  p.  36.  _ 

a  John  Mitchell:  Organized  Labor,  p.  181.  It  is  stated  on  p.  viii 
of  the  book  that  it  has  been  written  in  co-operation  with  Dr.  Walter 
E.  Weyl. 


Statement  of  the  Question  47 

placed  the  native  workmen  or  the  older  immigrants.  On 
closer  scrutiny,  however,  this  superficial  conclusion  may 
prove  wholly  unwarranted.  To  take  but  one  illustration, 
the  presence  of  a  few  thousand  unemployed  sailors  in  Buf- 
falo during  the  winter  months  is  no  proof  of  an  oversupply  of 
sailors  during  the  navigation  season  or  of  an  overstocked 
labor  market  in  general.  The  emigration  of  all  Slav  and 
Italian  surface  laborers  employed  during  the  summer  in  the 
iron  mines  of  the  Lake  Superior  region  would  not  create  a 
single  job  for  the  unemployed  sailors  in  the  winter.  On  the 
contrary,  the  reduction  of  the  working  force  in  the  mines 
during  the  season  which  is  most  favorable  for  their  operation 
would  have  the  effect  of  reducing  the  volume  of  iron  ore 
carried  on  the  lakes,  in  consequence  of  which  a  number  of 
sailors  could  be  dispensed  with  in  the  summer.  It  is  quite 
obvious  that  the  effects,  if  any,  of  immigration  upon  unem- 
ployment cannot  be  determined  by  deductive  reasoning. 
The  same  is  true  of  the  standard  of  living,  etc. 

In  order  to  bring  to  light  all  the  facts  respecting  immigra' 
tion,  a  commission  was  created  in  1907  by  an  act  of  Con' 
gress.  The  results  of  the  Commission's  investigations  will 
next  be  considered. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  REPORT  OF  THE  IMMIGRATION  COMMISSION 

THE  most  valuable  contribution  of  the  Immigration 
Commission  to  the  discussion  of  immigration  is  the 
conclusion  that  it  should  be  considered  "primarily  as  an 
economic  problem. ' ' x  This  statement  of  the  question  takes 
it  out  of  the  domain  of  conflicting,  more  or  less  specula- 
tive, social  theories  and  permits  of  its  consideration  on  the 
solid  basis  of  measurable  economic  realities. 

Of  the  forty-two  volumes  of  the  Commission's  report, 
thirty-one  contain  primary  facts  directly  or  indirectly 
related  to  the  economic  aspects  of  immigration. 2 

The  Commission  has  unanimously  recommended  restric- 
tion of  immigration,  the  only  dissenting  opinion  being  con- 
fined to  methods  of  restriction.  There  are  few  people  who 
will  go  beyond  the  conclusions  of  the  Commission  and 
undertake  the  task  of  examining  the  evidence,  presumably 
stored  up  in  its  voluminous  report.  The  lay  public  will 
assume  that  the  unanimous  conclusions  were  reached  after 
mature  deliberation  over  the  evidence  collected  by  the 
Commission.  An  illuminating  sidelight  upon  the  supposed 
connection  between  its  recommendations  and  its  statistics 
is  thrown  by  ex-Congressman  William  S.  Bennet's  dissenting 
opinion,  which  contains  the  statement  that  the  report  of  the 
Commission  was  finally  adopted  "within  a  half  hour  of  the 

1  -Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,_yol.  I,  p.  25. 

8  Volumes  3,  4,  6-28,  34,  35,  37,  and  40.  The  remaining  portion  of 
the  report  deals  with  ethnography,  education,  legislation,  etc.,  and  two 
of  the  volumes  are  summaries  of  the  whole. 

48 


Report  of  the  Immigration  Commission   49 

time"  when,  under  the  law,  it  had  to  be  filed,  which  left  "no 
time  for  the  preparation  of  an  elaborate  dissent."  It  is 
legitimate  to  question  under  the  circumstances  whether  the 
members  of  the  Commission  had  the  opportunity,  amidst 
their  manifold  duties,  to  examine  the  manuscript  of  the 
forty  volumes,  which  did  not  leave  the  printing  office  until 
more  than  a  year  after  the  Commission  had  ceased  to  exist. 
Apparently,  they  had  before  them  merely  the  summary  sub- 
mitted for  the  Commission's  approval  by  its  experts.  The 
unanimity  of  the  Commission  thus  invests  its  conclusions 
with  no  other  authority  than  the  scientific  weight  of  the 
statistical  and  descriptive  reports  of  its  experts.  The  most 
important  part  of  the  reports,  viz.  "  Immigrants  in  Indus- 
tries" (vols.  6-25),  "was  prepared  under  the  direction  of 
the  Commission"  by  one  expert,  Prof.  W.  Jett  Lauck  (of 
course,  with  the  assistance  of  a  staff  of  field  agents  and 
clerks).  The  student  is,  therefore,  free  to  judge  the  reports 
of  the  Commission  by  the  same  canons  as  other  official 
statistical  publications.  The  Commission  finds: 

That  the  numbers  of  recent  immigrants  "are  so  great  and 
the  influx  is  so  continuous  that  even  with  the  remarkable 
expansion  of  industry  during  the  past  few  years  there  has 
been  created  an  oversupply  of  unskilled  labor,  and  in  some 
of  the  industries  this  is  reflected  in  a  curtailed  number  of 
working  days  and  a  consequent  yearly  income  among  the 
unskilled  workers  which  is  very  much  less  than  is  indicated 
by  the  daily  wage  rates  paid." 

That  the  standard  of  living  of  "the  majority  of  the 
employees  .  .  .  is  so  far  below  that  of  the  native  American 
or  older  immigrant  workman  that  it  is  impossible  for  the 
latter  to  successfully  compete  with  them."  That  "they  are 
content  to  accept  wages  and  conditions  which  the  native 
American  and  immigrants  of  the  older  class  had  come  to 
regard  as  unsatisfactory  .  .  .  and  as  a  result  that  class  of 
employees  was  gradually  replaced." 

That  the  new  immigrants  have  in  some  degree  "lowered 
the  American  standard  of  living." 


50  Immigration  and  Labor 

That  a  "characteristic  of  the  new  immigrants  is  the 
impossibility  of  successfully  organizing  them  into  labor 
unions.  Several  attempts  at  organization  were  made,  but 
the  constant  influx  of  immigrants  to  whom  prevailing  con- 
ditions seemed  unusually  favorable  contributed  to  the  fail- 
ure to  organize." 

That  "the  competition  of  these  immigrants  .  .  .  has 
kept  conditions  in  the  semi-skilled  and  unskilled  occupations 
from  advancing. ' '  x 

Every  one  of  the  preceding  conclusions  involved  a  com- 
parison of  the  present  conditions  with  the  past.  Still  it  is 
only  as  a  rare  exception  that  fragments  of  statistical  infor- 
mation relating  to  the  earlier  period  of  American  industrial 
history  can  be  found  in  the  numerous  volumes  of  the  reports 
of  the  Immigration  Commission.  No  attempt  has  been 
made  to  utilize  the  vast  statistical  material  collected  by  the 
State  bureaus  of  labor  statistics  since  the  establishment  of 
the  Massachusetts  Bureau  in  1 869.  This  is  very  much  to  be 
regretted.  There  is  no  other  nation  in  the  world  that  ex- 
pends so  much  for  the  collection  of  statistical  data  and  so  little 
for  their  analysis  as  the  United  States.  An  index  prepared 
by  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor  to  the  publications  of 
the  State  labor  bureaus  up  to  1902  fills  a  volume.  The  data 
contained  in  these  publications  were  collected  at  great  cost 
during  a  period  of  years,  but  were  for  the  most  part  pub- 
lished in  an  undigested  form.  This  defect  is  the  result  of  the 
prevailing  policy  of  official  statistical  institutions  to  elimi- 
nate as  far  as  practicable  all  interpretations  of  their  statis- 
tics in  order  to  escape  the  suspicion  of  partisanship.  A 
Congressional  commission,  however,  is  free  from  such  limi- 
tations, its  very  purpose  being  to  draw  conclusions  and 
make  recommendations  which  are  of  necessity  open  to 
controversy.  A  perusal  of  the  single  volume  devoted  to 
immigration  in  the  report  of  President  McKinley's  Indus- 
trial Commission  shows  what  a  storehouse  of  original  data 
is  available  at  small  cost  in  the  files  of  official  publications 
'  x  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  pp.  38,  39. 


Report  of  the  Immigration  Commission   51 

of  States  and  municipalities.  The  Immigration  Com- 
mission with  its  vastly  greater  resources  had  the  oppor- 
tunity to  make  a  contribution  of  inestimable  value  to  the 
study  of  the  economic  and  social  conditions  of  the 
American  people  at  the  period  of  the  greatest  migration  in 
the  history  of  the  world.  Unfortunately  the  Commission 
expended  all  its  efforts  in  search  for  new  material,  with 
the  result,  as  candidly  admitted  by  Prof.  H.  Parker  Willis, 
"the  editorial  adviser"  in  the  final  preparation  of  its  re- 
port, that  the  thirty-one  volumes  have  added  a  fresh 
stock  of  ill-digested  statistics  to  that  previously  accumu- 
lated.1 

Of  what  value  are  the  tables  showing  the  rate  of  unem- 
ployment of  a  limited  number  of  selected  families  when  the 
censuses  of  1890  and  1900  have  collected  and  published  such 
data  for  all  bread-winners  in  the  United  States? 

The  fact  that  the  wage-earners  in  some  industries  were 
unemployed  some  part  of  the  year  covered  by  the  Com- 
mission is  alone  insufficient  to  support  the  conclusion  that 
the  number  of  working  days  has  been  "curtailed,"  without 
a  comparison  of  the  number  of  working  days  in  the  same 
industries  for  a  series  of  years.  "Racial  displacement" 
prominently  figures  in  the  tables  of  contents  of  every  vol- 
ume and  in  the  subheads  of  every  chapter  dealing  with  the 
condition  in  the  manufacturing  and  mining  industries,  but 
an  inspection  of  the  statistical  tables  discloses  no  evidence 
of  actual ' '  displacement. ' ' 

One  example  may  serve  as  an  illustration.  The  changes 
in  the  population  of  Birmingham,  Alabama,  have  been  the 
subject  of  the  following  commentary: 

1  "With  so  much  actually  collected  in  the  way  of  detailed  data,  and 
with  but  scant  time  in  which  to  summarize  these  data,  lacking,  more- 
over, a  sufficient  number  of  trained  writers  and  statisticians  to  study 
the  information  acquired  and  to  set  it  down  with  a  due  proportion  of 
properly  guarded  inferences,  it  is  a  fact  that  much  of  the  Commission's 
information  is  still  undigested,  and  is  presented  in  a  form  which  affords 
no  more  than  a  foundation  for  the  work  of  future  inquirers. " — H.  Parker 
Willis  in  The  Survey  of  January  7,  1911,  p.  571- 


52  Immigration  and  Labor 

It  is  even  more  significant,  however,  that  with  the  exception  of  the 
Welsh  and  Norwegians  there  was  a  falling  off  in  numbers  from  the  coun- 
tries of  Great  Britain  and  Northern  Europe  in  1900  as  contrasted  with 
1890,  the  increase  in  the  foreign-born  population  during  the  ten  years 
1890-1900  practically  all  arising  from  the  arrival  of  races  from  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europe.1 

The  numbers  which  have  given  occasion  to  the  preceding 
remarks  were  as  follows: 

Place  of  birth       1890        igoo. 


England.  .. 

258 

233 

Germany  .  . 

450 

446 

Ireland.... 

245 

218 

Scotland.  .  . 

53 

52 

Sweden.  .  .  . 

49 

16 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  total  "falling  off  in  numbers" 
amounted  to  33  Swedes,  27  Irish,  25  English,  4  Germans, 
and  I  Scotch — in  all,  90  persons  in  ten  years.  At  the  same 
time  the  native-born  population  increased  by  as  many  as 
12,113  persons,  while  the  total  increase  "from  the  arrival 
of  races  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  "  was  less  than 
2 14  persons.  Why  should  the  loss  of  the  90  natives  of  Great 
Britain  and  Northern  Europe  be  interpreted  as  their  dis- 
placement by  arrivals  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe 
rather  than  by  native  Americans?  Moreover,  the  rate  of 
mortality  among  those  nationalities,  except  the  Swedes, 
must  have  reduced  their  numbers  by  at  least  one  sixth  in  ten 
years,  which  is  more  than  twice  their  actual  falling-off  and 
suggests  that  there  must  have  been  some  increase  by  immi- 
gration from  the  same  sources.  So  the  actual  falling-off 
was  confined  to  the  Swedes,  who — if  all  alive — were  leaving 
Birmingham  at  the  rate  of  three  individuals  per  year.  Was 
the  annual  loss  of  three  Swedes  "significant"  enough  for  a 
city  whose  population  increased  50  per  cent  from  1890  to 
1900  to  be  noted  as  evidence  of  "racial  displacement"? 

"The  impossibility  of  successfully  organizing"  the  new 
immigrants  "into  labor  unions"  cannot  be  proved  without 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  9,  p.  159. 


Report  of  the  Immigration  Commission    53 

statistics  of  union  membership.  The  Commission  has  com- 
piled no  statistical  table  showing  the  growth  of  labor  unions 
in  various  trades  during  the  period  of  recent  immigration. 
The  data  collected  by  the  Commission  as  a  part  of  its  study 
of  households  are  too  meager  and  fragmentary  to  be  of  any 
value. 

The  following  table  and  commentary  are  a  fair  specimen 
of  the  Commission's  trade-union. statistics:1 

TABLE  233. 

AFFILIATION  WITH  TRADE-UNIONS  OF  MALES  21  YEARS  OF  AGE  OR  OVER 
WHO  ARE  WORKING  FOR  WAGES,  BY  GENERAL  NATIVITY  AND  RACE 
OF  INDIVIDUAL. 

(Study  of  households.) 


Number 

Affiliated 

with  trade-unions 

General  nativity  and  race  of  individual 

complete 
data 

Number 

Per  cent 

Native-born  of  native  father  —  white 
Native-born  of  foreign  father,  by 
race  of  father: 

47 

I 

•• 

O.O 

(a* 

•j 

(a) 

Irish  

I 

(a) 

Polish  

2 

(a) 

Foreign-born: 
Croatian    

24.O 

2 

.8 

I 

1-9 

Irish  

II 

(<0 

Polish  

64 

.0 

Slovenian            

I 

(a) 

'     Total  

424 

•I 

.7 

Total  native-born  of  foreign  father 
Total  native-born  .                 ...... 

7 

54 

•• 

w 

.0 

Total  foreign-born.             

170 

3 

.8 

(a)     Not  computed,  owing  to  small  number  involved. 

The  above  table  disposes  the  significant  fact  that  an  exceedingly 
small  proportion  of  employees  in  Kansas  City  of  foreign  birth,  and 
none  of  native  birth,  are  affiliated  with  labor  organizat/Vni. 


Ibid.,  vol.  13,  p.  300. 


54  Immigration  and  Labor 

The  fact  that  the  field  agents  of  the  Commission — in  a 
study  of  households,  not  of  trade-unions — happened  to  come 
across  three  trade-unionists  in  a  city  of  the  size  of  Kansas 
City,  is  considered  sufficient  to  justify  the  conclusion  that 
"an  exceedingly  small  proportion  of  employees  in  Kansas 
City  .  .  .  are  affiliated  with  trade-unions "!  Another  table 
brings  out  the  "affiliation  with  trade-unions"  of  one  South 
Italian  wage-earner  among  668  householders  duly  "classified 
by  nativity  and  race  of  individual."  * 

When  a  single  trade-unionist  in  an  unorganized  mill  town 
is  enlarged  into  an  "exhibit  by  general  nativity  and  race  of 
individual,"  one  cannot  help  wondering  that  the  economic 
data  of  the  Commission  have  been  compressed  within  the 
small  compass  of  thirty-one  volumes. 

Coming  to  the  standard  of  living,  it  is  clearly  insufficient 
to  compare  the  sections  inhabited  by  English-speaking 
skilled  mechanics  and  their  families  with  the  settlements  of 
the  unskilled  Slav  laborers,  with  a  view  to  showing  that  the 
former  present  a  better  appearance  than  the  latter.  The 
housing  conditions  of  the  new  immigrants  should  be  com- 
pared with  those  of  the  Irish  and  German  unskilled  laborers 
a  generation  ago,  in  order  to  support  the  conclusion  that  the 
former  have  "introduced  a  lower  standard." 

The  statistics  of  earnings  classified  by  race  and  nativity 
are  spread  over  hundreds  of  tables,  yet  they  are  vitiated  by 
the  absence  of  a  classification  by  occupations.  The  only  con- 
clusion that  can  be  drawn  from  these  statistics  is  that  the 
weekly  or  annual  earnings  of  the  new  immigrants  are,  as  a 
rule,  lower  than  those  of  the  native  wage-earners  or  the  older 
immigrants.  But  when  this  information  is  collated  with 
the  fact  that  the  new  immigrants  are  mostly  employed  in 
unskilled  occupations,  while  the  native  Americans  and  for- 
eign-born employees  of  the  older  class  have  risen  on  the  scale 

1  Ibid.,  vol.  8,  p.  390,  Table  286.  A  similar  table  comprising  two 
Polish  trade-unionists  among  441  heads  of  households  will  be  found  in 
the  same  volume  on  p.  765,  Table  515,  and  another  in  vol.  n,  p.  701, 
Table  38. 


Report  of  the  Immigration  Commission   55 

of  occupations,  it  is  readily  seen  that  the  hundreds  of  tables 
show  nothing  beyond  the  fact  that  supervisory  positions 
and  skilled  trades  are  more  remunerative  than  unskilled 
labor.  It  was  hardly  necessary  to  expend  much  time  and 
labor  in  order  to  establish  this  fact  which  is  a  matter  of 
common  knowledge.  To  justify  the  conclusions  of  the 
Commission,  proof  was  wanted  that  the  rates  of  wages  of 
the  new  immigrants  in  specified  occupations  were  lower 
than  those  paid  to  native  workmen  in  the  same  occupations 
and  in  the  same  localities.  No  such  proof  was  produced ;  on 
the  contrary,  the  Commission  found  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  new  immigrants  ' '  were  not,  as  a  rule,  engaged  at  lower 
wages  than  had  been  paid  to  the  older  workmen  for  the  same 
class  of  labor/' *  The  numerous  tables  showing  variations  in 
weekly  earnings  by  race  are  therefore  meaningless. 

The  popular  prejudice  against  the  new  immigrant  races 
justified  an  unbiased  comparative  study  of  their  social  and 
economic  conditions  in  the  United  States2.  Unfortunately 
the  experts  and  investigators  of  the  Commission  were  them- 
selves so  completely  under  the  sway  of  the  popular  senti- 
ment that  they  perceived  the  effect  of  race  differences  even 
in  small  variations  of  the  number  of  mine  accidents,  where 
the  element  of  chance  called  for  the  exercise  of  extreme 
caution  in  drawing  conclusions.  The  following  example  is 
typical  of  the  generalizations  which  abound  in  the  reports 
of  the  Commission.  In  the  year  1907  there  were  75  fatal 
and  non-fatal  accidents  among  the  Lithuanians  and  139 
among  the  Poles  employed  by  one  anthracite  coal  company. 
As  the  Lithuanians  were  somewhat  more  numerous  than  the 
Poles,  the  following  conclusion  is  drawn  in  the  report: 

The  differences  between  the  Lithuanian  and  Polish  figures,  after 

1  Reports,  vol.  I,  p.  38. 

a  "In  studying  the  immigration  situation  in  Europe  the  Commission 
was  not  unmindful  of  the  fact  that  the  widespread  apprehension  in  the 
United  States  relative  to  immigration  is  chiefly  due  to  this  change  in 
the  character  of  the  movement  of  population  from  Europe  in  recent 
years. " — Ibid.,  vol.  4,  P-  I2- 


56  Immigration  and  Labor 

making  due  allowance  for  error  in  both  cases,  is  still  so  great  that  it 
gives  ground  for  the  inference  that  here  a  real  race  difference  is  exposed. 
When  it  is  remembered  in  how  many  other  instances  in  this  report 
tables  have  shown  a  superiority  of  the  Lithuanians  over  the  Poles,  the 
conclusion  gathers  strength  that  the  former  show  greater  skill  and  care- 
fulness in  their  work.1 

In  Lawrence,  Massachusetts,  however,  "the  Lithuanians 
are  said  to  resemble  the  Poles  in  their  industrial  character- 
istics, but  are  thought  to  be  less  intelligent  or  at  any  rate  more 
illiterate."2  The  average  percentage  of  illiteracy  among 
the  Lithuanian  immigrants  admitted  from  1899  to  1910  was 
48.9  per  cent  and  amongr  the  Polish  immigrants  admitted 
during  the  same  period  35.4  per  cent.3  These  averages  are 
derived  from  the  records  of  over  a  million  individuals  of 
both  nationalities,  whereas  "the  superiority  of  the  Lithu- 
anians over  the  Poles'*  is  deduced  from  214  accidents  that 
occurred  in  one  year  in  the  mines  of  one  company. 

As  far  as  the  statistics  of  the  Commission  permit  to  judge 
jf  the  antecedents  of  the  Lithuanian  and  Polish  anthra- 
ite  coal  workers  in  their  native  countries,  it  appears  that 
aone  of  them  had  worked  in  mines  before  coming  to  the 
United  States;  96  per  cent  of  the  Lithuanians  and  86  per 
lent  of  the  Poles  from  whom  information  was  received  had 
been  peasants  (farmers  and  farm  laborers)  in  their  home 
countries,  the  proportion  of  farmers  and  farmers'  sons 
being  somewhat  higher  among  the  Poles  than  among  the 
Lithuanians,  viz.,  70  per  cent  and  60  per  cent,  respectively, 
of  the  total  number  reported  for  each  race.4  To  judge 
by  the  historical  experiences  of  the  two  races,  there  is 
no  warrant  whatsoever  for  rating  the  mass  of  the  Poles 
below  the  mass  of  the  Lithuanians.  For  centuries  they 
have  been  close  neighbors.  Since  the  organic  union  of 
Poland  and  Lithuania  in  1386,  Polish  civilization  was 
dominant  in  Lithuania.  The  ruling  classes,  the  landed 
nobility  and  the  clergy  were  thoroughly  Polonized.  Since 

1  Reports,  vol.  16,  p.  667  'Ibid.,  vol.  10,  p.  772. 

3  Ibid.,  vol.  I,  p.  99.  Table  II.          *Ibid.,  vol.  16,  p.  596,  Table  9. 


Report  of  the  Immigration  Commission   57 

the  policy  of  Russianization  was  inaugurated  in  Poland  and 
Lithuania  fifty  years  ago,  the  Lithuanians  have  been  at  a 
disadvantage  compared  with  the  Poles;  the  Lithuanian 
language  was  barred  from  the  public  schools;  they  were 
denied  the  right  to  have  a  press  in  their  own  language,  while 
the  mass  of  the  Lithuanian  people  do  not  understand  the 
Russian  language. 

The  Immigration  Commission  has  discovered  no  anthro- 
pological evidence  that  would  sustain  the  hypothesis  of  the 
superiority  of  the  Lithuanian  race,  unless  the  difference  of 
64  accidents  be  accepted  as  such  evidence.  Yet  it  appears 
from  the  same  accident  statistics  that  the  native  Americans 
also  contributed  more  than  their  share  of  accident  victims, 
whereas  the  Irish  exhibited  an  exceptionally  low  accident 
rate.  This  variation,  however,  must  not  be  construed  to 
show  a  superiority  of  the  Irish  over  the  native  Americans, 
because  "for  the  accident  report  the  State  mine  inspector 
generally  has  to  get  the  nationality  from  others,  usually 
friends  of  the  victim  or  his  boss,"  and  the  informa- 
tion is  often  erroneous.  "Probably  the  same  source  of 
error  accounts  for  some  of  the  Polish  accident  excess."1 
Still,  if  not  all  of  the  64  accidents  then  some  of  them  are 
deemed  sufficient  to  place  the  Poles  below  the  Lithuanians 
on  the  sliding  scale  of  foreign  races. 

It  would  seem  as  if  the  investigation  of  the  Immigration 
Commission  proceeded  upon  the  supposition  that  immigrant 
races  represented  separate  zoological  species.  Thus  we 
find  the  following  under  the  head  "diseases  peculiar  to 
immigrant  races": 

The  testimony  of  the  physicians  and  hospital  authorities  is  to  the 
effect  that  apparently  (sic/)  there  are  no  diseases  peculiar  to  any  one 
single  race.  The  chief  diseases  among  the  aliens  are  the  following: 
(a)  Rheumatism;  (b)  heart  diseases;  (c)  typhoid  fever;  (d)  pneumonia— 
this  is  one  of  the  diseases  most  common  to  the  foreign  population,  but 
they  seem  no  more  subject  to  it  than  the  natives.9 

Thus   it   has   been   officially   established   that   disease 
1  Reports,  vol.  1 6,  p.  667.  *Ibid.,  vol.  8,  p.  433- 


Immigration  and  Labor 


"  apparently  "  makes  no  distinction  of  race,  color,  or  previous 
condition  of  servitude,  "the  aliens"  being  subject,  alike 
with  native-born  and  naturalized  citizens,  to  rheumatism  and 
pneumonia.  The  habits  of  the  new  species  are  described  in 
the  language  of  the  naturalist.  We  learn,  e.  g.,  that  among 
the  Bulgarians  beef  "is  usualy  cooked  as  a  stew  with  veg- 
etables and  eaten  with  bread.  They  also  consume  all  forms 
of  green  vegetables  in  season.  .  .  .  The  usual  drinks  are 
coffee  and  beer.  Many  drink  hot  milk  in  the  morning." ' 
The  adoption  of  the  "race"  idea  as  a  basis  for  classification 
has  inevitably  led  to  the  splitting  up  of  all  statistical  data 
into  minute  groups  unfit  for  any  generalizations.  The 
Commission  has  nevertheless  systematically  reduced  all 
such  data  to  percentages,  which  are  used  for  comparison 
among  races.  It  is  an  elementary  rule  in  statistics  that 
averages  and  percentages  may  be  used  for  generalizations 
only  when  derived  from  large  numbers,  the  reason  being 
that  where  the  number  of  observed  cases  is  small  personal 
characteristics  or  casual  circumstances  may  affect  the 
results.  How  deceptive  percentage  may  be  when  derived 
from  insufficient  numbers,  is  illustrated  by  the  following 
table  compiled  from  the  Commission's  statistics,  showing 
the  "per  cent  of  foreign-born  employees  (in  the  clothing 
factories  investigated)  who  speak  English,  by  sex,  years  in 
the  United  States,  and  race."3 

TABLE  i. 

PER  CENT  WHO  SPEAK  ENGLISH,  BY  YEARS,  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 


Under 
5  years 

5  to  9 

years 

10  years 
or  over 

Total 

Male 
Bohemian  and  Moravian  
Polish              

22.5 
24.8 

18.1 
19.4 

45-0 
62.4 

sf-5 
63-0 

75.0 
83-2 

88.0 
89.4 

56.0 
51-1 

54-8 
49-9 

Female 
Bohemian  and  Moravian.  .  .  . 
Polish  

1  Reports,  vol.  9,  p.  82. 


3 Ibid.,  vol.  II,  p.  363,  Table  95, 


Report  of  the  Immigration  Commission    59 

The  significance  of  the  preceding  table  is  in  the  fact  that  the 
Bohemians  and  Moravians  are  classed  by  the  Immigration 
Restriction  League  among  "desirable"  immigrants,  where- 
as the  Poles  belong  to  the  "undesirable  aliens  from  Eastern 
Europe."  A  comparison  of  the  figures  in  the  first  three 
columns  shows,  however,  that  in  each  group  classified 
according  to  length  of  residence  in  the  United  States  the 
Poles  show  a  higher  percentage  of  males,  as  well  as  females, 
able  to  speak  English,  than  the  Bohemians.  And  yet  when 
the  totals  are  compared  for  both  nationalities,  irrespective 
of  length  of  residence  in  the  United  States,  it  appears  that 
the  Bohemians  exhibit  a  larger  percentage  of  persons  of 
either  sex  able  to  speak  English,  than  the  Poles.  The 
reason  for  this  arithmetical  aberration  is  disclosed  only  in 
another  part  of  the  volume,  where  the  number  of  persons 
in  each  of  the  preceding  groups  is  given.  It  appears  that 
about  one-half  of  all  Poles  had  resided  in  the  United  States 
less  than  five  years  and  accordingly  exhibited  a  small  per- 
centage of  persons  able  to  speak  English,  whereas  three 
fourths  of  all  males  and  two  thirds  of  all  females  of 
Bohemian  nationality  had  resided  in  the  United  States 
over  five  years  and  had  had  more  time  to  learn  English.1 

1  The  following  are  the  numbers  relating  to  the  two  rationalities: 


Male 
Bohemian  and 
Moravian  .  . 
Polish  

Number 
reporting 
complete 
data 

Years  in  the  United  States 

Under  5 

5  top 

I  o  or  over 

Num- 
ber 

Number 
who  speak 
English 

Num- 
ber 

Number 
who  speak 
English 

Num- 
ber 

Number 
who  speak 
English 

219 
153 

117 
127 

- 

532 
667 

347 
43i 

129 
302 

127 
216 

29 

75 

23 

42 

III 
181 

87 
73 

50 

"3 

50 
46 

—————— 

292 

184 

133 
142 

—  —  —  — 

Female 
Bohemian  anc 
Moravian.  . 
Polish        

1  Reports,  vol.  11,  pp.  54<>.  54*  •  Table  53< 


60  Immigration  and  Labor 

The  numbers  reported  permit  of  no  conclusion  beyond  the 
bare  fact  that  the  Bohemians  are  an  older  immigrant  race 
than  the  Poles,  yet  the  total  percentages  tend  to  create 
the  wholly  unjustified  impression  that  the  Poles  are  less 
capable  of  "  assimilation "  than  the  Bohemians.1 

The  defects  of  the  plan  and  statistical  method  of  the 
Commission  render  the  bulk  of  its  report  on  Immigrants  in 
Industries  valueless  or  misleading. 

1  The  reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission  abound  with  such 
comparative  percentages.  A  few  samples  only  can  be  quoted  in  these 
pages.  To  judge  by  percentages,  the  migratory  spirit  reaches  its  extreme 
height — 60.0  per  cent — among  the  Greeks  employed  in  the  packing 
industry  after  they  have  been  in  the  United  States  over  ten  years.  On 
closer  examination  it  appears,  however,  that  there  were  five  Greeks  all 
told  who  had  been  in  the  United  States  more  than  ten  years,  and  of 
their  number  three  had  visited  abroad.  (Reports,  vol.  13,  p.  151, 
Table  105.)  In  another  place  the  following  comment  is  made:  "The 
employment  of  the  wife  or  keeping  boarders  or  lodgers  is  less  frequent 
among  the  native-born  of  foreign  father. "  This  conclusion  is  derived 
from  the  reports  on  just  four  families  whose  heads  are  native-born  ol 
foreign  father.  (Ibid.,  voL  1 1 ,  p.  3 1 1 .) 


CHAPTER  III 

OLD  AND  NEW  IMMIGRATION 

IT  has  come  to  be  accepted  as  an  unquestionable  truth 
so  often  has  it  been  repeated — that  the  type  of  the  old 
immigrant  was  superior  to  the  recent  immigrants  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe : 

Fifty,  even  thirty  years  ago,  [said  Gen.  F.  A.  Walker  in  1896],  there 
was  a  rightful  presumption  regarding  the  average  immigrant,  that  he 
was  among  the  most  enterprising,  thrifty,  alert,  adventurous,  and 
courageous  of  the  community  from  which  he  came.  It  required  no 
small  energy,  prudence,  forethought,  and  pains  to  conduct  the  inquiries 
relating  to  his  migration,  to  accumulate  the  necessary  means,  and  to 
find  his  way  across  the  Atlantic. x 

The  immigrants  of  those  happy  days 

did  not  come  because  they  were  assisted  by  others,  they  did  not  come 
because  some  one  paid  their  passage  to  get  them  out  of  the  old  coun- 
try, but  they  came  because  they  wanted  to  be  free.  .  .  .  They  came 
not  at  the  behest  of  the  agents  of  the  steamship  lines  or  the  agent 
of  the  large  American  industries,  sent  over  to  buy  labor  as  by  auction, 
in  the  market.  ...  No;  they  came  at  their  own  behest,  and  did  not 
all  settle  down  in  the  centers  of  American  life  to  congest  it,  but  struck 
out  into  the  prairies  and  forest  to  build  homes  for  themselves  and 
families.8 

"Those  were  skilled  artisans  or  progressive  farmers  of  the 
thrifty,  self-reliant  type."3 

1  Francis  A.  Walker:  Discussions  in  Economics  and  Statistics,  p.  446. 

3  Statement  of  Rev.  M.  D.  Lichliter,  chaplain  of  the  Junior  Order 
American  Mechanics  before  the  House  Committee  on  Immigration  an£ 
Naturalization,  Sixty  first  Congress.  Hearings,  p.  49  *• 

3  Frank  Tracy  Carlton:  The  History  and  Problems  of  Organized 
Labor,  p.  328. 

61 


62  Immigration  and  Labor 

It  is  the  old  story  of  the  Golden  Age  in  a  modern  version. 
The  cold  facts  of  history,  however,  do  not  bear  out  this 
popular  myth. 

The  great  majority  of  immigrants  to  this  country  were  so  poor  that 
they  could  not  buy  their  passage,  and  in  order  to  meet  the  obligations 
incurred  by  them  for  passage  money  and  other  advances,  they  were  sold, 
after  their  arrival,  into  temporary  servitude.  .  .  .  The  prepayment  of 
the  passage  was  the  exception,  and  its  subsequent  discharge  by  compul- 
sory labor  the  rule.1  The  ship  owners  and  ship  merchants  derived 
enormous  profits  from  the  sale  of  bodies  of  immigrants,  as  they  charged 
very  high  rates  for  the  passage,  to  which  they  added  a  heavy  percentage 
— often  more  than  a  hundred  per  cent —  for  their  risks.  But  the  immi- 
grants suffered  bitterly  from  this  traffic  in  human  flesh.  Old  people, 
widows,  and  cripples  would  not  sell  well,  while  healthy  parents  with 
healthy  children  and  young  people  of  both  sexes  always  found  a  ready 
market.  If  the  parents  were  too  old  to  work,  their  children  had  to 
serve  so  much  longer  to  make  up  the  difference.  When  one  or  both 
parents  died  on  the  voyage,  their  children  had  to  serve  for  them.  The 
expenses  of  the  whole  family  were  summed  up  and  charged  upon  the 
survivor  or  survivors.  Adults  had  to  serve  from  three  to  six  years; 
children  from  ten  to  fifteen  years,  till  they  became  of  age;  smaller 
children  were,  without  charge,  surrendered  to  masters,  who  had  to 
raise  and  board  them.  As  all  servants  signed  indentures,  they  were 
called  ' '  indentured  servants. "  Whenever  a  vessel  arrived  at  Philadel- 
phia or  New  York  its  passengers  were  offered  at  public  sale.  The  ship 
was  the  market-place,  and  the  servants  were  struck  off  to  the  highest 
bidder.  The  country  people  either  came  themselves  or  sent  agents  or 
friends  to  procure  what  they  wanted,  be  it  a  girl,  or  a  "likely  boy,  or 
an  old  housekeeper,  or  a  whole  family.  .  .  .  Parents  sold  their  children 
in  order  to  remain  free  themselves.  When  a  young  man  or  girl  had  an 
opportunity  to  get  married  they  had  to  pay  their  master  five  or  six 
pounds  for  each  year  they  had  to  serve.  Yet  a  steerage  passage  never 
cost  more  than  ten  pounds.  ...  If  the  master  did  not  want  to  keep  his 
servant  he  could  sell  him  for  the  unexpired  time  of  his  term  of  servitude. a 

"The  newspapers  of  the  time  regularly  contain  advertise- 

1  Prof.  Commons  estimates  that  probably  one  half  of  all  the  immigrants 
of  the  colonial  period  landed  as  indentured  servants.  A.  M.  Simons: 
Social  Forces  in  American  History,  p.  19. 

a  From  a  paper  read  before  the  American  Social  Science  Association 
in  New  York  City,  in  1869,  by  State  Commissioner  of  Immigration, 
Friedrich  Kapp.  X  VI.  Annual  Report  of  the  New  York  Bureau  of  Labor 
Statistics,  pp.  964-965. 


Old  and  New  Immigration  63 

ments  of  the  arrival  of  ships  with  'indentured  servants' 
to  be  sold.  In  case  no  buyers  came  to  the  ship  the  pas- 
sengers were  sold  to  agents,  who  chained  them  together 
and  peddled  them  through  the  towns  and  villages."1 
*  So  great  then  was  the  poverty  of  the  early  immigrants 
that  for  the  sum  of  ten  pounds  they  were  willing  to  sell 
themselves  into  peonage.  The  last  sales  of  immigrants 
are  reported  in  1819  in  Philadelphia.2 

Nearly  a  century  ago,  the  managers  of  the  Society  for 
the  Prevention  of  Pauperism  in  the  City  of  New  York 
spoke  of  the  immigrants  "in  the  language  of  astonishment 
and  apprehension": 

Through  this  inlet  pauperism  threatens  us  with  the  most  overwhelm- 
ing  consequences.  .  .  .  The  present  state  of  Europe  contributes  in  a 
thousand  ways  to  foster  unceasing  immigration  to  the  United  States. 
.  .  An  almost  innumerable  population  beyond  the  ocean  is  out  of 
employment.  .  .  .  This  country  is  the  resort  of  vast  numbers  of  these 
needy  and  wretched  beings.  .  .  .  They  are  frequently  found  destitute 
in  our  streets,  they  seek  employment  at  our  doors;  they  are  found  in 
our  almshouses  and  in  our  hospitals;  they  are  found  at  the  bar  of  our 
criminal  tribunals,  in  our  bridewell,  our  penitentiary,  and  our  State 
prison,  and  we  lament  to  say  that  they  are  too  often  led  by  want,  by 
vice,  and  by  habit  to  form  a  phalanx  of  plunder  and  depredations, 
rendering  our  city  more  liable  to  increase  of  crimes  and  our  houses  of 
correction  more  crowded  with  convicts  and  felons.3 

Eighteen  years  later  the  Mayor  of  New  York  City  in  a 
communication  to  the  City  Council  complained  that  the 
streets  were  "filled  with  wandering  crowds"  of  immigrants 
"clustering  in  our  city,  unacquainted  with  our  climate, 
without  employment,  without  friends,  not  speaking  our 
language,  and  without  any  dependence  for  food,  or  raiment, 
or  fireside,  certain  of  nothing  but  hardship  and  a  grave."4 

1  Simons,  loc.  cit.,  p.  19.  a  Kapp,  loc.  cit.,  p.  965. 

3  Second  Annual  Report  of  the  Managers  of  the  Society  for  the  Pre- 
vention of  Pauperism  in  the  City  of  New  York,  1819.    Quoted  from 
the  Reports  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  449- 

4  H.  R.,  61  st  Congress.    Hearings  before  Committee  on  Immigration, 

P-  369. 


64  Immigration  and  Labor 

This  was  the  period  when,  according  to  Gen.  F.  A. 
Walker,  the  average  immigrant  was  "enterprising,  thrifty, 
,'tlert,  adventurous,  and  courageous."  A  contemporary 
writer  anticipated  General  Walker's  parallel  between  the 
old  and  the  new  immigration  in  almost  identical  language.'1 

A  generation  later  it  is  again  reported  that  "the  poor  and 
She  productive  classes  of  Europe,  by  hundreds  of  thousands, 
have  been,  and  are  now  coming  to  our  shores,  with  fixed 
habits  and  modes  of  life.  These  now  constitute,  mainly, 
the  army  of  our  unskilled  laborers,  are  ignorant  and  de- 
graded, pitifully  so."2 

Regarding  the  standard  of  living  of  the  Irish  peasantry 
at  the  beginning  of  the  Irish  exodus  to  America,  when, 
according  to  General  Walker's  "rightful  presumption," 
the  average  immigrant  was  thrifty  and  had  accumulated 
the  necessary  means  to  pay  his  way,  we  have  the  following 
description  from  the  same  authority: 

The  conditions  under  which  they  had  been  born  and  brought  up 
were  generally  of  the  most  squalid  and  degrading  character.  Their 
wretched  hovels,  thatched  with  rotting  straw,  scantily  furnished  with 
light,  hardly  ventilated  at  all,  frequently  with  no  floor  but  the  clay 
on  which  they  were  built,  were  crowded  beyond  the  bounds  of  comfort, 
health,  or,  as  it  would  seem  to  us,  of  simple  social  decency;  their  beds 
were  heaps  of  straw  or  rags;  their  food  consisted  mainly  of  buttermilk 
and  potatoes,  often  of  the  worst,  and  commonly  inadequate  in  amount ; 
their  clothing  was  scanty  and  shabby.  * 

1 "  Then  our  accessions  of  immigration  were  real  accessions  of  strength 
from  the  ranks  of  the  learned  and  the  good,  from  enlightened  mechanic 
and  artisan  and  intelligent  husbandman.  Now,  immigration  is  the 
accession  of  weakness,  from  the  ignorant  and  vicious,  or  the  priest- 
ridden  slaves  of  Ireland  and  Germany,  or  the  outcast  tenants  of  the 
poorhouses  and  prisons  of  Europe." — From  a  paper  entitled  "Imminent 
Dangers  to  the  Institutions  of  the  United  States  through  Foreign 
Immigration,"  etc.,  by  S.  F.  B.  Morse,  1835. —  H.  R.  Sixty-first  Con- 
gress. Hearings  before  the  Committee  on  Immigration,  p.  327. 

2  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor,  1869-1870, 
p.  88. 

y»  Walker,  loc.  cit.,  p.  451.  The  following  is  quoted  elsewhere  by  the 
game  author  from  the  report  of  Earl  Devon's  Commission  on  Irish 
Poverty  in  the  40*3:  "  In  many  districts,  their  daily  food  is  the  potato; 


Old  and  New  Immigration  65 

Congestion  was  a  common  evil  in  those  days,  as  it  is 
to-day,  and  the  reason  for  it  was  sought  in  the  fact  that  the 
Irish  immigrant,  born  in  a  cabin  or  a  garret,  had  been  used 
to  crowding  at  home.1  The  New  York  Weekly  Tribune 
of  May  2,  1846,  discussing  a  strike  of  Irish  laborers  in 
Brooklyn,  said  that  their  earnings  were  hardly  sufficient 
to  pay  the  rent  of  a  decent  tenement,  so  "they  were  allowed 
to  build  miserable  shanties  on  ground  allotted  them  by 
the  contractors  on  the  plot  occupied  by  them  in  performing 
the  work."2  A  quarter  of  a  century  later  the  dwellings 
of  the  Irish  immigrants  in  Boston  were  officially  charac- 
terized as  "sickening  kennels. " 3  Says  Dr.  Kate  H.  Claghorn, 
comparing  the  old  immigration  with  the  new:  "No  account 
of  filth  in  daily  surroundings  among  4Htai  and 
can  outmatch  the  pictures  drawn  by  observers  of  the  habits 
of  immigrant  Irish  and  even  Germans."4 

The  living  conditions  in  an  Irish  district  in  1864  were 
thus  described  by  a  city  inspector: 

The  tenants  seem  to  wholly  disregard  personal  cleanliness,  if  not  the 
very  first  principles  of  decency,  their  general  appearance  and  actions 
corresponding  with  their  wretched  abodes.  This  indifference  to  per- 
sonal and  domiciliary  cleanliness  is  doubtless  acquired  from  a  long 

their  only  beverage  water;  their  cabins  are  seldom  a  protection  against 
the  weather;  a  bed  or  a  blanket  is  a  rare  luxury;  and,  in  nearly  all,  their 
pig  and  manure  heap  constitute  their  only  property./" — Francis  A.  Walker:  t 
Political  Economy,  pp.  313-314.  "In  the  40*8,  at  the  time  of  the  potato 
famine  in  Ireland,  many  of  the  thousands  who  came  to  this  country 
were  in  serious  danger  of  absolute  starvation  if  they  remained  at  home. 
Practically  none  of  our  immigrants  of  the  present  day  are  in  such  a  con- 
dition."— Jenks  and  Lauck:  The  Immigration  Problem,  p.  12. 

1  A  contemporary  writer  had  "seen  in  Ireland  a  horse,  two  cows,  two 
goats,  grandmother,  father  and  mother,  brother  and  sisters,  an  infant 
in  a  cradle,  all  in  one  apartment.  "—Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission, 
vol.  xv.,  p.  459. 

2  Documentary  History  of  American  Industrial  Society,  vol.  viii.,  pp. 
225-226. 

3  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor,  1869-70, 
p.  88. 

« Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  491. 


66  Immigration  and  Labor 

familiarity  with  the  loathsome  surroundings,  wholly  at  variance  with 
all  moral  or  social  improvements.1 

A  gloomy  picture  of  the  moral  effects  of  bad  housing 
conditions  in  the  foreign  sections  of  New  York  City  in  1878, 
when  the  immigrants  were  only  Irish  and  Germans,  was 
drawn  in  a  report  of  the  Association  for  the  Improvement 
of  the  Condition  of  the  Poor: 


In  many  quarters  of  the  city  family  life  and  the  feeling  of  home  are 
almost  unknown;  people  live  in  great  caravansaries,  which  are  hot  and 
stifling  in  summer,  disagreeable  in  winter,  and  where  children  associate 
together  in  the  worst  way.  In  many  rooms  privacy  and  purity  are 
unattainable,  and  young  girls  grow  up  accustomed  to  immodesty  from 
^flipAM^  yea])M4MN  herd  together  in  gangs,  and  learn  the 
practices  of  crime  and  vice'  before  they  are  out  of  childhood.  Even 
the  laborers'  families  who  occupy  separate  rooms  in  these  buildings 
have  no  sense  of  home.3 

Dr.  Griscom,  as  early  as  1842,  had  called  attention  to  the  "depraved 
effects  which  such  modes  of  life  exert  upon  the  moral  feelings  and 
habits";  and  the  city  inspector  in  1851  remarks  that  "  these  over- 
populated  houses  are  generally,  if  not  always,  seminaries  of  filthiness, 
indecency,  and  lawlessness."* 

Dr.  Claghorn  concludes  her  review  of  the  housing  con- 
ditions of  the  former  generations  of  immigrants  with  the 
following  remarks: ' 

The  newer  immigrants  arrive  here  at  no  lower  social  level,  to  say  the 
least,  than  did  their  predecessors.  Their  habits  of  life,  their  general 
morality  and  intelligence  can  not  be  called  decidedly  inferior.  .  .  .  The 
Italian  ragpicker  was  astonishingly  like  his  German  predecessor,  and 
the  Italian  laborer  is  of  quite  as  high  a  type  as  the  Irish  laborer  of  a 
generation  ago.  In  some  cases  the  newer  immigrants  have  brought 
about  positive  improvements  in  the  quarters  they  have  entered.  Whole 
blocks  have  been  transferred  from  nests  of  pauperism  and  vice  into 
quiet  industrial  neighborhoods  by  the  incoming  of  Italians  and  Hebrews. « 

Throughout  the  nineteenth  century  relief  against  city 

« Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  p.  456.          a  Ibid.,  p.  459. 
*  Loc.  cit..  p.  458.  *  Loc.  cit.t  p.  491. 


Old  and  New  Immigration 


67 


poverty  was  sought  in  directing  the  current  of  immigration  to 
the  farm.  As  early  as  1 8 1 7, '  *  the  same  anxiety  was  felt  that 
is  felt  to-day  to  get  the  immigrant  out  of  the  'crowded' 
cities  into  the  country  beyond."1  In  1819,  the  managers 
of  the  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Pauperism  of  the  City 
of  New  York  favored  the  plan  of  establishing  "communica- 
tion .  .  .  with  our  great  farmers  and  landholders  in  the  in- 
terior" with  a  view  to  provide  "ways  and  means  ...  for 
the  transportation  of  able-bodied  foreigners  into  the  in- 
terior," where  labor  could  be  provided  for  them  "upon  the 
soiL"2  Forty  years  later  the  Association  for  the  Improve- 
ment of  the  Condition  of  the  Poor  complained  of  the  Irish 
immigrants  that  "they  had  an  utter  distaste  for  felling 
forests  and  turning  up  the  prairies  f«gf '  Lhemselv^^'JMifey 
preferred  to  stay  where  another  race  would  furnish  them 
with  food,  clothing,  and  labor,  and  hence  were  mostly  found 
loitering  on  the  lines  of  the  public  works,  in  villages,  and  in 
the  worst  portions  of  the  large  cities  where  they  competed 
^vith  negroes  ...  for  the  most  degrading  employments."^ 
*  The  old  immigrants,  like  those  of  the  present  generation, 
were  mostly  unskilled  laborers  and  farm  hands,  as  will 
appear  from  an  analysis  of  Table  2  next  following. 4 

TABLE  2. 

PER  CENT  DISTRIBUTION  OF  IMMIGRANTS  BY  OCCUPATIONS: 
I86I-I9IO. 


Occupation 

1861- 

1870 

1871- 
1880 

1881- 
1890 

1891- 

1900 

1901- 
1910 

Professional.           

0.8 

1.4 

I.I 

0.9 

1-5 

Skilled.                  

24.0 

23.1 

20.4 

20.1 

20.2 

17.6 

18.2 

14.0 

II-  4 

24-3 

Unskilled  laborers              .  .  . 

4.2.4 

41.9 

50.2 

47.0 

34-8 

Servants  

7.2 

7-7 

9-4 

i5-i 

14.1 

All  other  occupations  

8.0 

7-7 

9-4 

5-5 

5-i 

Total  

IOO.O 

IOO.O 

IOO.O 

IOO.O 

IOO.O 

1  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  p.  449  3  Loc-  cit">  P*  462- 

tReportofthe  A.  I.  C.  P.,  1860,  p.  50-    Quoted  from  Report  of  the 

Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  462. 

<For  annual  averages  and  sources  of  information  see  Appendix, 

Table  I. 


68  Immigration  and  Labor 

The  sharp  fluctuations  of  the  percentages  of  agricultural 
workers  and  common  laborers  indicate  that  the  distinction 
between  farm  laborers  and  other  laborers  was  probably  not 
very  accurately  drawn  in  our  immigration  statistics.  For 
the  period  1901-1910  it  is  possible  to  subdivide  all  persons 
engaged  in  agricultural  pursuits  into  farmers  and  farm 
laborers,  the  former  constituting  i  .6  per  cent  and  the  latter 
23.0  per  cent  of  all  immigrant  breadwinners. 

Allowing  the  same  percentage  for  the  decade  next  preced- 
ing, with  a  rising  tide  of  immigration  from  Eastern  and 
Southern  Europe,  and  estimating  the  maximum  proportion 
of  farmers  in  the  "old  immigration"  at  one  half  of  all  in- 
coming agricultural  workers,1  we  arrive  at  the  following 
comparative  ratios  for  unskilled  laborers  and  farm  help 
combined. 

TABLE  3 

RATIO  OF  LABORERS  TO  IMMIGRANT  BREADWINNERS. 

Period  Per  cent  . 

1861-1870  51.2 

I87I-I880  51.0 

1881-1890  57.2 

1891-1900  57.0 

1901-1910  57.9 

The  ratio  of  unskilled  laborers  and  farm  hands  to  the 
total  number  of  breadwinners  exhibits  but  little  change 
during  the  whole  fifty-year  period.  For  the  half-century 
beginning  in  1820,  the  proportion  of  unskilled  laborers, 
exclusive  of  those  classified  under  agricultural  pursuits, 
has  been  computed  as  46.6  per  cent,2  i.  e.,  about  the  same  as 
for  the  later  period. 

1  This  is  vastly  more  than  is  claimed  for  the  "old  immigration"  by 
Professors  Jenks  and  Lauck  in  their  unofficial  summary  of  the  reports 
of  the  Immigration  Commission,  wherein  they  say  that  "the  percentage 
of  farmers  as  distinguished  from  farm  laborers  has  always  been  very 
small,  so  small  as  not  to  be  an  appreciable  factor  in  determining  our 
civilization." — Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.t  p.  31. 

•  Political  Science  Quarterly,  March,  1904;  Roland  P.  Falkner:  Some 
Aspects  of  the  Immigration  Problem,  p.  49. 


Old  and  New  Immigration  69 

The  percentage  of  skilled  mechanics  has  varied  but  little 
for  the  last  fifty  years,  and  has  at  no  time  reached  one 
quarter  of  all  immigrant  breadwinners.  If  this  percentage 
is  added  to  the  estimated  maximum  ratio  of  farmers,  it 
will  be  found  that  the  aggregate  of  "skilled  artisans  and 
progressive  farmers  of  the  thrifty,  self-reliant  type"  could 
in  the  good  old  days  not  have  been  as  high  as  one  third  of 
the  total  immigration. 

Still  it  is  broadly  asserted  that  the  "new  immigration" 
is  drawn  from  the  "poorest  and  least  desirable"  elements  of 
the  population  of  Italy,  Austria,  and  Russia.  "Measured 
either  by  intellectual,  social,  economic  or  material  standards, 
the  average  immigrant  of  any  particular  class  from  these 
countries  is  far  below  the  best  of  his  countrymen  who*remain 
behind,  and  probably  also  below  the  average."1 

No  comparative  study  of  the  immigrants  and  their  coun- 
trymen who  remain  at  home  is  cited  in  support  of  this 
view.  It  still  rests  on  the  purely  deductive  argument,  first 
advanced  by  Mayo-Smith  twenty-four  years  ago,  that,  as 
the  result  of  the  increase  of  transportation  facilities  and  the 
reduction  of  the  cost  of  passage,  "it  is  more  and  more  the 
lower  classes  that  are  coming."  In  corroboration  of  this 
argument  he  cited  the  fact  that  the  Irish  and  German  immi- 
grants of  his  day  were  coming  from  the  poorer  sections  of 
their  countries.2  It  is  obvious,  however,  that  the  inhabi- 
tants of  those  sections  were  not  all  on  the  same  economic 
level.  Lack  of  opportunities  in  a  poor  country  will  drive 
people  of  some  means  to  seek  better  luck  abroad,  while 
lack  of  funds  will  keep  the  poorest  at  home.  Be  that  as 
it  may,  since  the  time  of  Mayo-Smith  the  steerage  rates 
have  been  doubled.  The  increase  in  the  cost  of  transpor- 

1  William    Williams:    New    Immigration,   p.    286.    Report   of  the 
Conference  of  Charities  and  Corrections,  1906.    See  also  Prescott  F.  Hall : 
Selection  of  Immigration,  Annals  of  American  Academy  of  Political  and 
Social  Science,  July,  1904,  p.  174;  Robert  Hunter:  Poverty,  p.  270. 

2  Richmond  Mayo-Smith :   "  Control  of  Immigration,"  Political  Science 
Quarterly,  1888,  pp.  62,  69,  70,  and  71. 


70  Immigration  and  Labor 

tation  has  been  tantamount  to  a  head  tax  of  from  $18  to 
$27*  and  should  have  raised  the  standard  of  the  "new  im- 
migration," as  compared  with  the  immigrants  of  the  70*5 
and  the  early  8o's.  j 

Leaving  aside,  however,  all  speculative  considerations, 
we  have  a  purely  objective  standard  of  comparison,  viz., 
the  ratio  of  literacy.  It  is  generally  recognized  that  "prob- 
ably the  most  apparent  cause  of  illiteracy  in  Europe,  as 
elsewhere,  is  poverty.  The  economic  status  of  a  people  has 
a  very  decided  effect  upon  the  literacy  rate.  .  .  .  Another 
phase  of  the  economic  factor  is  the  need  of  children's 
service  at  home."2 

While  the  statistics  of  illiteracy  among  immigrants  to  the 
United  States  are  not  compiled  on  a  uniform  basis  with 
foreign  statistics  of  illiteracy,  still  for  a  few  countries  and 
nationalities  the  data  are  fairly  comparable.  An  exami- 
nation of  the  figures  presented  in  Table  4  shows  that  as  a 
rule  the  mtio  of  illiteracy  among  the  immigrants  is  con- 
siderably lower  than  among  their  countrymen  at  home.3 
Thesj  statistics  prove  that  measured  by  intellectual  standards 
the  average  immigrant  is  above  the  average  of  his  countrymen 
who  remain  behind.  Illiteracy  being  the  effect  of  poverty 
(by  hypothesis),  one  cannot  escape  the  conclusion  that, 
measured  by  economic  standards,  the  immigrant  is  likewise 
above  the  average  of  his  native  country. " 

1 "  During  the  later  seventies  and  early  eighties  the  steerage  passenger 
rate  fluctuated  from  as  low  as  $12  up  as  high  as  $25,  but  averaged  about 
$i7or$i8.  .  .  .  In  the  later  eighties  and  early  nineties  .  .  .  most  of 
the  foreign  steamship  companies — there  were  no  native  companies — 
gradually  increased  the  steerage  rates  to  about  $38  or  $39.  .  .  .  (The 
rates  charged  now)  vary  from  about  $36  to  $38  and  $39,  depending 
upon  the  port,  vessel,  and  so  forth.  Thirty-seven  dollars  and  fifty 
cents  is  commonly  quoted  as  the  average." — Hearings  before  Committee 
on  Immigration  and  Naturalization,  H.  R-.  6ist  Congress:  Statement  of 
James  H.  Patten,  pp.  31-32. 

2  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  4,  pp.  34-35. 

*  See  Note  on  the  Statistics  of  Italian  Illiteracy,  at  end  of  chapter. 


Old  and  New  Immigration  71 

TABLE    4. 

PER  CENT  OF  ILLITERACY  AMONG  THE  POPULATION  OF  RUSSIA,  BULGARIA, 

SERVIA  AND  GREECE,  AND  AMONG  THE  IMMIGRANTS  FROM 

THE  SAME  COUNTRIES.1 


Nationality, 

Population 

Immigrants  14  years  of  age  and 
over,  year  ended  June  30  — 

year  of  enumeration, 
and  age  group 

1908 

1890-1910 

Male 

Female 

Male 

Female 

Both  sexes. 

Russia,  1897: 

Russians: 

10  to  19  years 
20  years  and 
over 

51.3 
62.6 

83.6  f 
89.7  ) 

4O.I 

50.8 

38.4 

Hebrews 

i  o  to  19  years 
20  years  and 

41-3 

58.0  ) 

21.9 

40.4 

26.08 

over 

32.6 

66.2   ) 

Bulgaria,  ipoo: 
14  years  and 

over 

57-3 

89.4^ 

Servia,  IQOO: 

1 

ii  to  1  5  years 

55-7 

89.6  [ 

35-0 

50.2 

41.7 

1  6  to  20  years 

58.8 

90.9 

21  years  and 

over 

70.2 

94.4  J 

Greece,  1907: 

1  4  years  and 

42.6 

82.2 

26.9 

57-5 

over 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  i ,  p.  99.    Report  of  the 
Commission  of  Immigration  of  the  State  of  New  York,  ipop,  pp.  170  and 
171.     Premier  Re"censement  Ge"ne"ral  de  la  Population  de  I'Empire  de 
Russie,  1897.    Releve"  G<§ne"ral,  Part  2,  pp.  97  and  134.    Bulgarie,  Re"- 
censement  de  la  population,  1900,  vol.  i.,  p.  125.    Annuaire  Statistique 
du  Royaume  de  Serbie  pour  1900,  vol.  v.,  pp.  75-80.    Grece,  Re"cense- 
ment  de  la  population,  1907,  vol.  i,  pp.  156-157. 

2  This  percentage  represents  the  ratio  of  illiteracy  among  the  Hebrews 
of  all  countries,  but  the  bulk  of  Hebrew  immigration  comes  from  Russia. 
The  population  statistics  of  Austria  classify  Hebrews  as  Poles,  Germans, 
etc.,  according  to  mother  tongue.    The  ratio  of  illiteracy  among  the 


72  Immigration  and  Labor 

The  Immigration  Commission  on  its  trip  to  Europe 
sought  the  opinions  of  experts  respecting  the  character  of 
emigration  to  the  United  States.  The  conclusions  reached 
by  the  Commission  have  none  of  the  pessimistic  sound 
typical  of  restrictionist  literature.  Says  the  Commission: 

The  present  movement  is  not  recruited  in  the  main  from  the  lowest 
economic  and  social  strata  of  the  population.  .  .  .  Neither  do  the 
average  or  typical  emigrants  of  to-day  represent  the  lowest  in  the  eco- 
nomic and  social  scale  even  among  the  classes  from  which  they  come,  a 
circumstance  attributable  to  both  natural  and  artificial  causes.  In  the 
first  place,  emigrating  to  a  strange  and  distant  country,  although  less  of 
an  undertaking  than  formerly,  is  still  a  serious  and  relatively  difficult 
matter,  requiring  a  degree  of  courage  and  resourcefulness  not  possessed 
by  weaklings  of  any  class.  This  natural  law  in  the  main  regulated  the 
earlier  European  emigration  to  the  United  States,  and  under  its  in- 
fluence the  present  emigration,  whether  or  not  desirable  as  a  whole, 
nevertheless  represents  the  stronger  and  better  element  of  the  particular 
class  from  which  it  is  drawn. x 


Roumanian  Hebrews  15  years  of  age  and  over,  according  to  the  census 
of  1889,  was  55.6  per  cent.  ("Sans  protection,"  meaning  mostly 
Hebrews.)  R£sultats  de*finitifs  du  de*nombrement  de  la  population  de 
Roumanie,  1899,  p.  Ixii. 

1  Reports,  vol.  4  (in  press).  From  the  opinions  of  Americans  who 
had  long  resided  in  Italy  and  of  leading  Italians,  which  are  quoted  in  the 
Commission's  report,  a  few  are  selected  here  by  way  of  illustration. 

Rev.  N.  W.  Clark,  an  American,  in  charge  of  the  educational  work 
of  the  Methodist  Church  of  Italy,  said:  "The  class  of  emigrants  who  go 
to  the  United  States  are  unquestionably  the  more  enterprising,  the  better 
element;  only  those  would  be  able  to  go  who  have  the  money  to  get 
tickets;  many  are  too  poor  to  go. " 

In  a  report  to  the  Department  of  State,  the  American  Consul  at 
Palermo  quotes  the  country  correspondents  of  a  Sicilian  news- 
paper, concerning  the  local  estimate  of  the  character  of  emigration 
from  that  island.  "As  these  accounts — says  he — were  in  no  way 
prepared  for  the  foreign  eye,  or  for  any  official  or  political  purpose, 
but  only  by  way  of  a  routine  chronicle  of  the  happenings  of  life  in  the 
minor  communities,  they  are  spontaneous  and  unbiased  and  have  an 
authority  that  can  hardly  be  impeached:*'  One  of  the  correspondents 
says  of  the  emigrants  that  they  are  not  "driven  out  by  dire  want  and 
necessity;  they  are  lured  rather  by  the  desire  to  better  themselves  in 
the  world  and  make  a  possible  fortune.  .  .  .  Many  are  of  a  class 


Old  and  New  Immigration  73 

The  social  prejudice  against  the  immigrant  which  it  is 
sought  to  justify  by  his  alleged  inferiority,  antedates  the 
influx  of  the  "  undesirable  aliens  from  Eastern  and  Southern 
Europe."  Suffice  it  to  recall  the  agitation  of  the  Know- 
Nothing  days,  with  its  rioting  and  outbreaks  of  mob  vio- 
lence against  the  Irish,  the  desecration  of  their  churches, 
the  petty  persecution  of  Irish  children  in  the  public  schools, 
the  denunciation  of  the  Germans,. the  mobbing  of  German 
newspapers  and  Turner  halls.  * 

Probably  the  most  important  element  in  this  antipathy  was  the  pure 
contempt  which  men  usually  feel  for  those  whose  standards  of  life  seem 
inferior.  This  feeling  was  felt  towards  all  immigrants  of  the  poorer 
class,  irrespective  of  their  race.  To  the  mind  of  the  average  American 
the  typical  immigrant  was  a  being  uncleanly  in  habits,  uncouth  in 
speech,  lax  in  the  moralities,  ignorant  in  mind,  and  unskilled  in  labor. 
.  .  .  The  immigrant  bore  a  stamp  of  social  inequality.3 

The  manifestations  of  this  social  prejudice  in  the  indus- 
trial field  seventy  years  ago  were  much  the  same  as  to-day. 

About  the  year  1836  to  1840,  very  material  changes  took  place  among 
.  .  .  the  general  laboring  help  in  all  departments  of  industry.  The 
profuse  immigrations  from  Ireland.  .  .  crowded  into  all  the  fields  of 
labqr,  and  crowded  out  the  former  occupants.  Under  the  prejudice  of 
nationality  .  .  .  the  American  element,  the  daughters  of  independent 
farmers,  educated  in  our  common  schools  .  .  .  retired  from  mill  and 
factory,  and  all  the  older  establishments,  and  can  no  longer  be  found 
therein.  Their  places  were  taken  up  in  the  old,  and  all  the  new  were 
filled  by  the  new  immigrants,  s 

possessing  some  little  property. "  Another  correspondent  speaks  of  the 
emigrants  as  "the  enterprising  and  robust  youth  .  .  .  confiding  in  their 
strength."  According  to  him,  "this  emigration  .  .  .  comprises  even 
people  of  fairly  easy  circumstances. " 

1  H.  J.  Desmond:  The  Know-Nothing  Party,  pp.  7-105.  ^^  Dow 
Scisco:  Political  Nativism  in  New  York  State,  pp.  19,  248-249.  Herr- 
mann Von  Hoist:  Constitutional  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  v.,  pp. 
188-190.  James  Schouler:  History  of  the  United  States,  vol.  v.,  pp. 
305-306. 

a  Scisco,  loc.  cit.,  p.  19. 

3  First  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor,  1870, 
p.  91. 


\ 
74  Immigration  and  Labor 

By  a  strange  inconsistency  those  who  object  to  the  coming 
of  the  immigrant  as  strongly  object  to  his  going.  Why  the 
* '  bird^  of  passage  *  *  should  have  been  the  subject  of  popular 
censure  is  from  an  economic  point  of  view  inconceivable. 
So  long  as  there  are  variations  in  business  activity  from  year 
to  year  and  from  season  to  season,  which  result  in  unem- 
ployment, the  American  wage-earners  should  be  the  last  to 
object  if  a  class  of  wage-earners  choose  to  leave  the  country 
temporarily  while  there  is  no  demand  for  their  services, 
thereby  relieving  competition  for  jobs  in  its  acutest  shape. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  the  present  immigration  policy 
as  well,  the  departure  of  the  "bird  of  passage"  ought  to  be 
approved  as  the  best  assurance  that  he  would  not  "become 
a  public  charge. "  Still  if  an  immigrant  who  comes  to  this 
country  when  there  is  work  to  be  done  and  leaves  when  he 
is  not  wanted  is  to  be  regarded  as  an  "undesirable  alien," 
it  is  of  interest  to  know  how  the  "new  immigration"  com- 
pares in  this  respect  with  the  "old  immigration."  "The 
one  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the  record  of  departuf es 
from  the  United  States,"  says  the  Immigration  Commis- 
sion, "is  that  as  a  whole  the  races  or  peoples  composing 
the  old  immigration  are  essentially  permanent  settlers,  and 
that  a  large  proportion  of  the  newer  immigrants  are  simply 
transients."1 

"The  one  conclusion"  is,  however,  not  the  only  one,  for 
in  another  volume  the  Commission  takes  a  more  hopeful 
view,  to  wit: 

It  is  inaccurate  to  speak  of  the  immigrant  population  as  being  only 
temporarily  in  this  country.  It  is  true,  no  doubt,  that  most  of  the 
recent  immigrants  hope  at  first  to  return  some  day  to  their  native  land, 
but  the  whole  history  of  immigration  goes  to  show  that  with  the  pass- 
ing years  and  the  growth  of  the  inevitable  ties,  whether  domestic, 
financial,  or  political,  binding  the  immigrant  to  his  new  abode,  these 
hopes  decline  and  finally  disappear. a 

Inasmuch  as  the  conclusions  of  the  Commission  contradict 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  4,  p.  40. 

2  Ibid.,  vol.  8,  p.  657. 


Old  and  New  Immigration 


75 


each  other,  we  must  go  back  to  the  facts  from  which  they 
are  drawn.  The  Immigration  Commission  in  its  investi- 
gation paid  considerable  attention  to  this  question.  The 
foreign-born  workmen  in  iron  and  steel  mills  are  classed  by 
popular  belief  among  the  most  "undesirable"  elements  of 
the  "new  immigration."  The  comparative  frequency 
among  them  of  the  objectionable  character  addicted  to  the 
habit  of  visiting  his  old  home  and  parents,  may  accordingly 
be  accepted  as  typical  of  the  races  of  the  "new  immigra- 
tion." The  Commission's  data,  presented  in  Table  5,  show 
that  the  English-speaking  races  harbor  among  them  a  higher 
proportion  of  these  offenders  than  all  Eastern  and  Southern 
European  races,  except  the  North  Italians  and  the  Slovaks. 
The  former,  however,  do  not  differ  in  this  respect  from  the 
Scotch,  while  the  Slovaks  exceed  the  Swedes  by  a  fraction  of 
i  per  cent. 

TABLE  5. 

VISITS  ABROAD  MADE  BY  FOREIGN-BORN  EMPLOYEES  IN  IRON  AND  STEEL 
MILLS,  BY  RACES.1 


Northern  and  Western  European  Races. 


Southern  and  Eastern  European  Races. 


Nationality. 


Per  cent. 


Nationality. 


Per  cent. 


Canadian 46.1 

Scotch 27.6 

Welsh. 24.7 

English 24.0 

Swedish 21.0 


Italian,  North 27.6 

Slovak 21.4 

Italian,  South 20.7 

Magyar 20.3 

Roumanian I5-1 

Croatian 14.3 

Slovenian 13-9 

Servian 12.2 

Russian 10.2 

Greek 8.8 

Bohemian  and  Moravian  8.5 

Poli^ &&. 

Lithuanian 6.2 


Even  the  vexed  problem  of  "assimilation"  appears  to  be 
as  old  as  immigration  itself.     Benjamin  Franklin,  in  a 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  8,  p.  152,  Table  no. 


76  Immigration  and  Labor 

personal  letter  dated  Philadelphia,  May  9,  1753,  charac- 
terized the  Germans  of  Pennsylvania  in  the  following  terms : 

Those  who  come  hither  are  generally  the  most  stupid  of  their  own 
nation,  and  as  ignorance  is  often  attended  with  great  credulity,  when 
knavery  would  mislead  it  ...  it  is  almost  impossible  to  remove  any 
prejudice  they  may  entertain.  .  .  .  Not  being  used  to  liberty  they 
know  not  how  to  make  modest  use  of  it.  ...  I  remember  when  they 
modestly  declined  intermeddling  with  our  elections;  but  now  they  come 
in  droves  and  carry  all  before  them,  except  in  one  or  two  counties. 

Few  of  their  children  know  English.  They  import  only  books  from 
Germany,  and  of  the  six  printing  houses  in  the  Province,  two  are  entirely 
German,  two  half  German,  half  English,  and  but  two  are  entirely  Eng- 
lish. They  have  one  German  newspaper  and  one  half  German.  Ad- 
vertisements intended  to  be  general  are  now  printed  in  Dutch  and 
English.  The  signs  in  our  streets  (Philadelphia)  have  inscriptions  in 
both  languages,  and  some  places  only  in  German.  They  begin,  of  late, 
to  make  all  their  bonds  and  other  legal  instruments  in  their  own  language, 
which  (though  I  think  it  ought  not  to  be)  are  allowed  in  our  courts, 
where  the  German  business  so  increases,  that  there  is  continued  need  of 
interpreters,  and  I  suppose  in  a  few  years  they  will  also  be  necessary 
in  the  Assembly,  to  tell  one  half  of  our  legislators  what  the  other  half 
says.  In  short,  unless  the  stream  of  importation  could  be  turned  from 
this  to  other  colonies,  as  you  very  judiciously  propose,  they  will  soon 
outnumber  us,  that  all  the  advantages  we  will  have  will  in  my  opinion, 
be  not  able  to  preserve  our  language,  and  even  our  government  will 
become  precarious.1 

Franklin's  apprehensions  concerning  the  Legislature  of 
Pennsylvania  were  all  but  justified  at  the  convention  of  the 
State  of  Pennsylvania  held  at  Philadelphia  from  July  15  to 
September  28,  1776,  whose  minutes  were  ordered  published 
weekly  in  English  and  German.2  This  practice  was  still 
continued  as  late  as  I79O.3 

The  conditions  in  Pennsylvania  were  by  no  means  ex- 
ceptional. Says  Prof.  McMaster  of  the  same  period: 

1  Frank  Ried  Diffenderffer:  The  German  Immigration  into  Pennsyl- 
vania, 1700  to  1775,  Part  II,  pp.  110-113^ 

a  Pennsylvania  House  Journal,  vol.  i,  p.  57,  Friday,  July  26,  1776, 

P.M. 

*  Journal  of  the  Senate  of  the  Commonwealth   of  Pennsylvania,  vol 
i,  1790-1791,  p.  22,  Thursday,  December  16, 1790. 


Old  and  New  Immigration  77 

Diverse  as  the  inhabitants  of  the  States  .  .  .  were  in  occupations 
they  were  not  less  diverse  in  opinions,  in  customs,  and  habits.  .  .  ! 
Differences  of  race,  differences  of  nationality,  of  religious  opinions,  of 
manners,  of  tastes,  even  of  speech,  were  still  distinctly  marked. 
In  New  York  the  Dutch  element  prevailed  and  the  language  of  Holland 
was  very  generally  spoken.1 

With  the  great  influx  of  Irish  and  German  immigrants 
in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  distinct  colonies  of 
those  nationalities  grew  up  in  the  larger  cities. 

So  large  are  the  aggregations  of  different  foreign  nationalities  [says 
a  report  of  that  day]  that  they  no  longer  conform  to  our  habits,  opinions, 
and  manners,  but,  on  the  contrary,  create  for  themselves  distinct  com- 
munities, almost  as  impervious  to  American  sentiments  and  influences 
as  are  the  inhabitants  of  Dublin  or  Hamburg.  .  .  .  They  have  their 
own  theaters,  recreations,  amusements,  military  and  national  organiza- 
tions; to  a  great  extent  their  own  schools,  churches,  and  trade  unions; 
their  own  newspapers  and  periodical  literature.8 


The  Irish  were  accused  of  "  clannishness,"3  like  the  "immi- 
grants from  Eastern  and  Southern  Europe"  in  our  day, 
although  "to  a  large  extent  this  going  apart  of  the  Irish  was 
but  natural  in  view  of  the  contemptuous  manner  in  which 
the  'nativist*  Americans  treated  them."4  It  took  three 
generations  to  raise  "the  Celts  and  the  Teutons"  to  a  place 
among  the  "more  desirable  immigrants  from  Northern 
and  Western  Europe." 

Have  the  new  immigrants  given  evidence  of  an  assimi- 
lability  inferior  to  that  exhibited  by  the  Germans?  Some 
evidence  on  this  subject,  collected  by  the  Immigration 
Commission,  is  given  in  Table  6  next  below,  relating  to  the 
families  of  employees  in  the  slaughtering  and  packing  houses 
of  Kansas  City: 

'  John  Bach  McMaster:  History  of  the  People  of  the  United  States, 
vol.  i.,  pp.  lo-n.  s 

3  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  455. 
3  Scisco,  loc.  cit.,  p.  19.  -.       '  '*  Desmond,  loc.  cit.t  p.  9. 


78  Immigration  and  Labor 

TABLE  6. 

PER  CENT  OF  POLISH   AND    GERMAN   EMPLOYEES   OF    PACKING  HOUSES  IN 

KANSAS  CITY  AND   THEIR   FOREIGN-BORN   CHILDREN  SIX  YEARS 

OF  AGE  OR  OVER  WHO  SPEAK  ENGLISH,  BY  YEARS  IN 

THE  UNITED  STATES.1 

Years  in  the  United  States  Polish  German 

Under  5 26.1  20.0 

5  to  9 73.2  70.0  '       . 

10  or  over 100.0  95-8       . 

It  can  be  seen  from  this  table  that  the  Polish  workmen 
and  their  children  born  abroad  number  among  them  a 
larger  percentage  of  English-speaking  persons  than  the 
Germans  who  have  lived  in  the  United  States  the  same 
length  of  time.  This  example  need  not  be  the  general 
rule,  but  it  shows  that  the  general  classification  of  the 
Germans  as  "English-speaking"  and  of  the  Poles  as  non- 
English-speaking  is  purely  a  matter  of  prejudice. 
*  It  is  obviously  not  the  character  of  the  new  immigration 
that  is  the  real  cause  of  the  popular  feeling.  The  opposition 
of  organized  labor,  the  main  social  force  behind  the  present 
agitation  for  restriction,  originated  at  a  time  when  the 
numbers  of  immigrants  from  Eastern  and  Southern  Europe 
were  too  small  to  attract  attention.  Resolutions  in  opposi- 
tion to  immigration  were  adopted  by  the  National  Labor 
Union  as  early  as  i868.2  The  report  of  the  president  to 
the  convention  of  the  Cigarmakers'  Union  held  in  1879 
discussed  immigration  among  "the  evils  which  affect  the 
trade.7'3 

The  report  of  the  New  York  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics 
for  1885,  in  a  summary  of  the  testimony  taken  on  the  sub- 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  13,  Table  256,  p.  329. 
a  Documentary  History  of  American  Industrial  Society,  vol.  ix.,  pp.  221- 

222. 

s  Cigarmakers'  Official  Journal,  vol.  v.,  No.  I,  September  15,  1879, 
p.  2.  Editorial  articles  against  immigration  appeared  in  the  official 
organ  of  the  Cigarmakers'  Union  before  that,  in  the  issues  of  June  10, 
1878,  and  January  10,  1879. 


Old  and  New  Immigration  79 

ject  of  immigration,  records  a  growing  feeling  of  opposition 
to  foreign  labor.  Every  reason  which  is  urged  to-day 
against  the  admission  of  immigrants  from  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europe  is  recited  in  that  testimony,  although 
five  sixths  of  the  immigration  in  the  fiscal  year  1885,  and 
still  more  during  the  prior  years,  came  from  Canada  and 
Northern  and  Western  Europe.1  Thirteen  years  later  an 
inquiry  addressed  by  the  New  York  Bureau  of  Labor  to 
officers  of  labor  organizations  elicited  the  following  reply 
from  the  Brotherhood  of  Carpenters  and  Joiners  No.  382, 
of  New  York:  "Immigrants  from  Northern  Europe — 
Danes  and  Swedes — interfere  very  much  with  the  keeping 
up  of  the  wages  in  the  trade.  That  is  the  principal  thing 
we  find  fault  with."3 

The  only  apparent  difference  between  the  old  immigra- 
tion and  the  new  is  that  of  numbers.  The  reason  why  the 
"old  immigration ' '  is  to-day  viewed  with  greater  favor  than 
the  new  is  that  there  is  much  less  of  it.  It  is  so  stated  in 
the  testimony  of  the  representative  of  the  railway  brother- 
hoods before  the  House  Committee  on  Immigration  and 
Naturalization: 

A  good  many  people  are  apt  to  consider  themselves  better  than  some 
other  nationality.  It  is  a  matter  of  opinion,  and,  for  my  part,  I  am 
not  discussing  this  subject  with  any  such  narrow  view  of  the  situation. 
I  am  not  prepared  to  say  that  the  Italian  or  the  Slav  or  the  Hungarian 
or  the  Mexican  has  not  the  natural  attributes  that  go  to  make  up  good 
citizenship.  ...  It  is  not  a  question  of  whether  or  not  they  possess 
those  qualities.  .  .  .  The  question  is  whether  or  not  ...  a  foreigner 
brought  into  this  country  is  replacing  or  ruinously  competing  with  some 
one  who  is  already  here.3 

This  is  the  question  to  which  the  attention  of  the  unpreju- 

*  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  pp.  63  and  87. 

•  XVI  Annual  Report  of  New  York  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  1898, 
p.  1047. 

3  Hearings  before  Committee  on  Immigration  and  Naturalization, 

H.  R.  6ist  Congress,  pp.  251-252. 


8o  -"•          Immigration  and  Labor 

diced  student  of  the  immigration  problem  should  address 
itself. 

NOTE:  THE  STATISTICS  OF  ITALIAN  ILLITERACY 

The  Immigration  Commission  concedes  that  "it  is  impossible,"  from 
a  comparison  of  Italian  statistics  of  illiteracy  with  our  own  statistics  of 
illiteracy  among  Italian  immigrants,  "to  determine  whether  the  pro- 
portion of  illiterates  among  Italian  immigrants  to  the  United  States 
is  greater  or  less  than  among  corresponding  classes  in  Italy."1  It 
immediately  seeks  to  weaken  this  conclusion  by  selecting  for  comparison 
the  statistics  of  illiteracy  among  persons  contracting  marriage,  on  the 
assumption  that  "in  the  matter  of  age  the  marriage  group  would  prob- 
ably correspond  rather  closely  to  the  immigrant  group."  As  a  result 
of  this  selection  it  appears  "that  in  1905  36.9  per  cent  of  the  total 
population  contracting  marriage  and  48.8  per  cent  of  the  immigrants 
were  illiterate. "  A  comparison  of  the  tables  in  question  (28  and  32) 
shows  that  the  ratio  of  illiteracy  among  persons  contracting  marriage 
in  1901  was  32.7  per  cent  for  males  and  46.1  per  cent  for  females, 
whereas  among  the  population  at  large  21  years  of  age  and  over  the 
ratio  of  illiteracy  was  43.9  per  cent  and  60.4  per  cent  respectively. 
This  difference  is  readily  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  the  marriage 
group  is  younger  than  the  adult  population  as  a  whole,  and  the  younger 
generations  have  had  the  benefit  of  the  progress  of  education  in  Italy; 
the  ratio  of  illiteracy  among  the  adult  population  of  both  sexes  in  1901 
was  52.3  per  cent,  as  compared  with  63.4  per  cent  in  1882.' 

On  the  other  hand,  while  the  immigrants  contain  a  large  percentage 
of  young  men  of  marriageable  age,  yet  there  are  among  them  quite  a 
number  of  men  who  have  been  married  several  years.  Moreover, 
"the  marriage  group  ...  is  drawn  from  all  sections  of  the  country 
and  from  all  classes  of  the  population,  while  immigrants  are  largely 
from  the  peasant  class  of  the  more  southern  compartimenti. "  It  is 
evident  that  a  comparison  of  the  marriage  group  with  the  immigrant 
group  must  be  unfavorable  to  the  latter.  If  the  immigrants  are  com- 
pared with  the  total  population  21  years  of  age  and  over,  the  results  are 
quite  different.  The  percentage  of  illiteracy  in  Northern  Italy,  accord- 
ing to  the  census  of  1901,  fluctuated  between  16.8  and  46.8  per  cent 
for  males  and  between  28.8  and  59.6  per  cent  for  females  21  years  of 
age  and  over,  whereas  among  North  Italian  immigrants  of  both  sexes 
14  years  of  age  and  over,  for  the  fiscal  year  1901,  the  ratio  of  illiteracy 
was  only  15.3  per  cent.3  In  Southern  Italy  the  percentage  of  illiteracy 
among  adults  widely  differs  from  one  district  to  another;  in  some  the 

1  Reports  of   the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  4,  p.  192. 

•  Ibid.t  Table  27.  » Ibid.,  Tables  28  and  33. 


Old  and  New  Immigration  81 

ratio  of  illiteracy  is  lower,  in  some  higher  than  among  South  Italian 
immigrants. 

Even  if  the  marriage  group  furnished  a  proper  standard  for  comparison 
the  variations  of  the  illiteracy  rate  by  administrative  divisions  would 
make  the  results  uncertain.  In  two  districts  the  ratio  of  illiteracy 
would  be  below  and  in  two  others  above  the  percentage  of  illiteracy 
among  the  North  Italian  immigrants.  In  Southern  Italy  two  districts 
show  a  higher  percentage  of  illiteracy  among  males  than  the  average 
among  South  Italian  immigrants  of  both  sexes,  and  the  percentage  of 
illiterates  among  women  is  in  all  but  three  districts  higher  than  among 
the  immigrants  of  both  sexes.  The  Commission  would  have  been  on 
safer  ground,  had  it  adhered  to  its  original  conclusion,  instead  of  specu- 
lating on  the  basis  of  such  incommensurable  figures. 


CHAPTER  IV 

IMMIGRATION  AND  THE  LABOR  MARKET 

THE  main  question  in  all  present  discussion  of  immigra- 
tion is:*NDoes  immigration  injure  the  economic 
interests  of  the  American  wage-earner?  The  demand  for 
restriction  of  immigration  proceeds  from  the  assumption 
that  immigration  overcrowds  the  American  labor  market, 
hordes  of  willing  workers  being  driven  by  fear  of  starvation 
to  compete  for  one  job.  To  remedy  this  evil  foreign  immi- 
gration must  be  restricted:  keep  the  "undesirable"  immi- 
grants out,  and  the  American  workingmen  will  be  kept 
busy.  The  more  consistent  advocates  of  this  view,  as 
previously  stated,  regard  all  immigrants  as  undesirable. 
It  is  an  echo  of  the  Malthusian  theory,  that  population 
increases  faster  than  the  means  of  subsistence,  with  this 
modification,  however,  that  the  cause  of  the  disproportion 
is  found,  not  in  the  natural  propagation  of  the  human  species, 
but  in  immigration,  which  is  believed  to  outrun  the  oppor- 
tunities of  employment.  In  order  to  test  the  accuracy  of 
this  assumption,  let  us  first  take  an  inventory  of  the  indus- 
trial progress  of  the  United  States  compared  with  the  growth 
of  population  for  the  last  twenty  years. 

The  population  of  the  continental  United  States  increased 
between  1890  and  1910  from  63,000,000  to  92,000,000, 
*.  e.t  46  percent.  During  the  same  period,  the  production 
of  coal  in  the  United  States  more  than  trebled,  the  in- 
crease being  from  140,000,000  to  448,000,000,  long  tons.1 
As  the  exports  of  coal  from  the  United  States  are  insig- 

1  Statistical  Abstract  of  the  United  States,  1911,  Table  335. 

82 


Immigration  and  the  Labor  Market      83 

nificant, x  these-  figures  indicate  that  to-day  three  times  as 
much  coal  is  consumed  in  this  country  as  twenty  years  ago. 
is  thejoundation  of  modern  industry.  The  increased 
consumption  ofcoal  indicates  that  the 'consumption  of 
steam  has  increased  threefold,  i.  e.,  that  the  whole  American 
industry  has  grown  in  proportion.  The  production  of 
steel,  another  basic  article  of  modern  industry,  increased 
during  the  twenty-year  period  1889-1909  seven-fold,  from 
3,400,000  to  24,000,000  long  tons.  The  production  of 
copper  more  than  quadrupled,  viz.,  from  101,000  to  488,000 
tons.  The  number  of  ton-miles  of  freight  carried  over 
American  railways  nearly  trebled  from  1890  to  1909,  the 
increase  being  from  seventy-seven  billions  to  two  hundred 
and  nineteen  billions.  The  total  amount  of  bank  clearings 
in  the  United  States  likewise  nearly  trebled  in  the  twenty- 
year  period  between  1890  and  1910,  having  grown  from 
$58,000,000,000  to  $169,000,000,000. 2  The  increase  in  the 
amount  of  bank  clearings  may  be  accepted  as  a  fair  index 
of  the  aggregate  industrial  expansion.3  Thus,  while  the 
economic  activities  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  have 
trebled  during  the  last  twenty  years,  population  has  in- 
creased by  less  than  one  half. 

'  The  introduction  of  labor-saving  machinery  has  lessened 
the  potential  demand  for  new  laborers,  yet  the  pace  of 
industrial  development  has  been  faster  than  the  progress 
of  invention.  The  growing  demand  for  bituminous  coal 
necessitated  an  increase  of  the  working  force  from  192,000 
in  1890  to  556,000  in  1910. 4  The  number  of  railway  em- 
ployees increased  from  749,301  in  1890  to  1,502,823  in  1909, 

1  The  exports  of  bituminous  coal  from  the  United  States  in  1891-1910 
fluctuated  between  1.5  and  3.1  per  cent  of  the  annual  production. 
— Statistical  Abstract  of  the  United  States,  1910,  p.  541. 

8  Statistical  Abstract  of  the  United  States,  1910,  Table  No.  335. 

3  Professor  Irving  Fisher  estimates  that  the  total  trade  of  the  United 
States  increased  from  $191,000,000,000  to  $387,000,000,000   in   the 
thirteen  years  1896-1909.— The  Purchasing  Power  of  Money,  p.  304. 

4  Mineral  Revmrces  of  the  United  States,  1908,  pp.  25,  41.    United 
States  Geological  Survey.     The  Production  of  Coal  in  191  o,  p.  41. 


84  Immigration  and  Labor 

t.  e.t  exactly  100  per  cent.1  The  average  number  of  wage- 
earners  employed  in  manufactures  increased  between  1889 
and  1909  from  4,200,000  to  6,600,000, 2  i.  e.,  57  per  cent. 

^The  unbiased  testimony  of  figures  shows  that  the  demand 
for  labor  within  the  last  twenty  years  has  outrun  the  growth 
of  population,  both  through  natural  increase  and  through 
immigration.  The  investigators  of  the  Immigration  Com- 
mission sought  to  ascertain  from  employers  of  labor  the 
C"  reason  for  employing  immigrants/'  and  were  told  that 
i"they  found  it  necessary  either  to  employ  immigrant  labor 
or  delay  industrial  advancement."3  A  number  of  specific 
instances  are  quoted  in  the  Commission's  reports.  In  the 
Birmingham  iron  and  steel  district,  Alabama,  where  the 
number  of  immigrants  is  insignificant,  "the  largest  employ- 
ers of  labor  .  .  .  state  that  under  normal  conditions,  at 
the  present  stage  of  the  industrial  development  of  the 
district,  the  ordinary  labor  supply  which  may  be  relied  upon 
continuously  affords  about  50  per  cent  of  the  total  necessary 
to  operate  all  plants  and  mines  at  their  full  capacity."4 
In  the  centers  of  immigration,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
clothing  manufacturers  likewise  claim  "that  the  industry 
has  developed  faster  than  the  number  of  clothing  workers 
has  increased."  With  the  revival  of  business  after  the 
depression  of  1908  they  found  it  "almost  impossible  to 
keep  their  pay-rolls  full."5 

According  to  an  investigation  made  by  the  United  States 
Bureau  of  Labor, 

the  demand  for  laborers  of  all  kinds  in  all  lines  of  industry  greatly  ex- 
ceeded the  supply  during  the  year  1906.  One  of  the  great  lines  of 
railroad  reported  an  increase  in  its  construction  and  track  gangs  of 
41  per  cent  in  1906  over  1905.  .  .  .  The  men  employed  were  all 

1  Interstate  Commerce  Commission,  Twelfth  Annual  Report  on  the 
Statistics  of  Railways,  p.  40,  and  Twenty-second  Annual  Report,  p.  34. 

9  Bureau  of  the  Census,  Manufactures,  1905,  Part  I.,  p.  xxxvi.  Census 
Bureau's  Preliminary  Summary  for  1909.  "Advance  Statement  to  the 
Press  of  October  1 8,  1911.  3  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.,  p.  140. 

*  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  9,  p.  151. 

*Ibid.t  vol.  II,  p.  411. 


Immigration  and  the  Labor  Market      85 

Italian  immigrants.  .  .  .  Another  large  railway  system  reported  an 
fccrease  of  44  per  cent  in  this  class  of  workers  in  1906  over  1905.  The 
increase  of  one  company  was  24  per  cent  in  this  class  of  common  labor. 
An  iron  and  steel  company  with  a  total  of  147,343  employees  in  1904 
mcreased  it  to  180,158  employees  in  1905  and  to  217,109  in  1906. 

Conditions  are  perhaps  best  summed  up  in  this  extract 
from  a  letter  received  from  the  President  of  one  of  the 
largest  railroads: 

Our  work  was  delayed  in  both  years—igos  and  1906— by  the  in- 
ability to  get  workmen.  This  is  true  not  only  of  railroads  but  of  the 
industries  along  our  lines.  Our  patrons  were  constantly  giving  as  the 
excuse  for  not  promptly  unloading  cars  that  they  are  unable  to  get 
the  laborers  to  do  the  work.  There  was  not  only  a  scarcity  of  common 
laborers  in  the  country,  but  we  found  it  impossible,  under  existing  con- 
ditions, to  get  an  adequate  number  of  workmen  for  our  shops.1 

Statements  of  employers  of  labor,  however,  are  discounted ; 
what  is  meant  by  "a  scant  labor  supply"  is  simply,  it  is 
thought,  "the  inability  of  the  manufacturers  and  mine 
operators  to  secure  labor  at  the  same  wages  in  the  face  of 
the  growing  labor  needs  of  the  country.  "a  Aside  from  the 
admission  implied  in  this  interpretation,  that  the  demand 
for  labor  is  growing  faster  than  the  supply,  there  is  unin> 
peachable  evidence  to  the  same  effect  in  the  report  of  the 
Bureau  of  Labor,  to  which  reference  has  been  made  above. 
The  Bureau's  investigator  examined  the  books  of  a  number 
of  employment  agencies  for  1906  and  found  that  they  had 
been  unable  to  supply  more  than  a  fraction  of  their  orders 
for  help.3 

1  Frank  J.  Sheridan:  "  Italian,  Slavic,  and  Hungarian  Unskilled  Im- 
migrant Laborers  in  the  United  States."  Bulletin  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor, 
No.  72,  pp.  424-425- 

a  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.t  pp.  17,  140. 

a  "A  personal  examination  of  the  books  of  record  of  another  agency, 
covering  a  period  of  eight  months,  from  April  I  to  November  30,  1906, 
showed  that  165  employers  in  the  States  of  New  York,  New  Jersey, 
Connecticut,  Pennsylvania,  and  Virginia  made  application  for  8668 
Italian  laborers  from  this  one  agency.  The  agency  supplied  fewer  than 
f  500.  Another  agency,  where  no  fees  were  charged,  had  applications 


Immigration  and  Labor 

Doubtless,  demand  and  supply  in  the  labor  market  are 
fluctuating.  During  the  twenty-year  period  under  con- 
sideration, this  country  has  gone  through  two  industrial 
crises,  when  great  numbers  of  wage-earners  were  suddenly 
thrown  out  of  employment.  The  question  is,  what,  if 
any,  is  the  interdependence  between  the  vicissitudes  of 
the  labor  market  and  immigration? 

The  Industrial  Commission,  in  1901,  from  a  comparative 
study  of  the  number  of  immigrants  and  price  index  numbers 
.for  a  period  of  sixty  years,  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that 
''"immigration  follows  business  conditions  in  obedience  to 
the  opportunities  for  employment :  In  times  of  business  ex- 
pansion, when  capital  is  seeking  investment  and  the  re- 
sources of  the  country  are  being  eagerly  developed  .  .  . 
immigrants  enter  in  increasing  numbers  to  take  a  share  of 
the  increasing  wages  and  employment,  but  in  times  of 
business  depression  their  numbers  decline.  "x 

The  report  of  the  Industrial  Commission  appeared  after 
a  decade  of  declining  immigration.  Has  the  unprecedented 
immigration  of  recent  years  changed  its  relation  to  business 
conditions  in  this  country? 

A  comparative  view  of  the  fluctuations  of  business  and 
immigration  for  the  past  thirty  years,  since  the  tide  has 
set  in  from  Eastern  and  Southern  Europe,  can  be  gained 
from  a  glance  at  Diagram  I.2  It  will  be  observed  that  the 
curves  representing  the  production  of  coal,  the  volume  of 
railway  freight,  bank  clearings,  and  immigration  run  in 

in  seven  months  for  37,058,  and  could  supply  but  3705  newly  arrived 
Italian  immigrants.  One  effect  of  the  scarcity  is  reported  by  an  Italian 
agency  as  follows: 

" '  Since  about  July,  1906,  on  account  of  the  great  scarcity,  employers 
pay  from  $3.00  to  $5.00  per  man  for  common  laborers.  Not  for  twenty- 
two  years  have  there  been  such  high  fees  offered.  Since  the  demand  set 
in  the  laborer  pays  no  fees.' "  (Bulletin  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor,  No.  72, 

pp.  424-425-) 

1  Reports  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  pp.  308,  309.  See 
also  chart  opposite  p.  305. 

3  Based  uoon  the  figures  of  the  Statistical  Abstract  of  the  United  States. 


DIAGRAM  I. 


IMMIORANT5  ARRIVED.  TENS  OF  THOUSANDS 
PRODUCTION  OF  COAL,  luwr  -  Z.000.000  LONG  TONS 
LWAY  FREIGHT.  BILLIONS  OF  (SHORT)  TON  HUES 
.US  BANK  CLEARINGS:  BILLIONS   OF  DOLLARS 


COMMERCIAL  FAILURES.  IU 


500,000 


"\ 


£/ 


*>/ 


r 


1 


Ly 


I 

I.    Immigration  and  business  conditions,  1880-1910. 


Immigration  and  Labor 


harmony.  On  the  other  hand,  the  decrease  of  immigration 
from  1880  to  1899  runs  almost  parallel  with  the  increase  of 
commercial  failures,  and  vice  versa.  During  the  following 
years  of  prosperity  the  amount  of  commercial  failures 
showed  little  variation,  and  the  curve  of  immigration  was 
following  the  lines  of  industrial  expansion.  The  years  since 
the  last  panic  again  show  a  parallelism  between  the  decline 
of  immigration  and  the  increase  of  failures,  on  the  one  hand, 
ajid  industrial  activity,  on  the  other. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  immigration  figures 
represent  gross  additions  to  the  population  of  the  United 
States.  Attention  has  frequently  been  called,  however, 
to  the  vast  disparity  between  the  increase  of  the  foreign- 
born  population  from  one  census  to  another  and  the  total 
immigration  for  the  intervening  period.  The  latest  figures 
on  the  subject  are  given  in  Table  7. 

TABLE  7. 

IMMIGRATION    COMPARED    WITH    INCREASE    OF    FOREIGN-BORN    POPULA- 
TION.1 


Decade 

Immigration 
(Thousands) 

Increase  in  foreign-born  population 

Number 
(Thousands) 

Per  cent  ratio 
to  immigration 

1850-1860 

2,598 
2,315 
2,812 

5,247 
3,688 

8,795 
5,565 

1,928 
1,428 
I,H3 
2,570 
1,092 
3,175 
358 

74 
62 
40 
50 
29 
36 
6 

1860-1870  

1870-1880 

1880-1890    

1890-1900  

1900—1910 

1910-1920  2  

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I.,  pp.  64,  135. — XIII.  Census.  Popu- 
lation, vol.  i.,  p.  781. 

J  The  comparative  figures  for  the  last  decade  do  not  include  Orientals,  the  preliminary 
returns  of  the  XIV.  Census  made  public  by  the  Bureau  of  the  Census  being  confined  to 
foreign-born  white.  The  total  number  of  white  immigrants  for  the  period  from  July 
i,  1910,  to  June  30,  1920,  has  been  computed  from  the  Report  of  the  Commissioner  - 
General  of  Immigration  for  1920,  Table  XV.,  pp.  181-182. 

The  difference  between  gross  immigration  and  the  net 
increase  of  the  foreign-born  population  is  the  combined 
result  of  mortality  and  emigration.  As  the  foreign-born 
population  increases,  an  ever  larger  number  of  new  arrivals 


DIAGRAM  II. 


II.     Movement  of  third-class  passengers  between  the  United 
States  and  European  pofts,  1899-1909  (Tens  of  Thousands) 


89 


Immigration  and  Labor 


merely  fill  up  the  places  of  their  predecessors  claimed  by 
death.  The  foreign-born  white  population  of  the  United 
States  in  1920  was  twice  as  great  as  in  iSSo1;  accordingly 
twice  as  many  immigrants  were  required  in  1920  as  forty 
years  before  only  to  keep  the  numbers  of  foreign-born  sta- 
tionary. The  statistics  of  the  inward  and  outward  trans- 
atlantic passenger  traffic  are  generally  taken  to  represent 
the  immigration  and  emigration  movement.2  The  respec- 
tive figures  for  1899-1909  are  reproduced  in  Table  8  from  the 
Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  4,  Table  26,  and 
plotted  in  Diagram  II.  on  p.  89. 

TABLE  8. 

MOVEMENT  OF  THIRD  CLASS  PASSENGERS  BETWEEN  THE  UNITED  STATES 
AND  EUROPEAN  PORTS  DURING  THE  CALENDAR  YEARS 
1899  TO  1909.     (THOUSANDS.) 


Year 

West-bound 
passengers 

East-bound 
passengers 

Net  immigration  (  +) 
or  emigration  (.—  ) 

1899 

381 

118 

+263 

1900 

503 

156 

+347 

1901 

545 

141 

+404 

1902 

753 

177 

+576 

1903 

887 

252 

+635 

1904 

762 

371 

+391 

1905 

1004 

244 

+760 

1906 

1223 

338 

+885 

1907 

1378 

555 

+823 

1908 

420 

657 

-237 

1909 

750 

287 

+463 

1  The  foreign-born  white  population  increased  from  6,559,679  in 
1880  to  13,703,987  in  1920. 

2  Richmond-Mayo-Smith:   "  Immigration  and  the  Foreign-Born  Pop- 
ulation."    Publications  of  the   American   Statistical   Association,   vol. 
iii.,  pp.  305-306.    Roland  P.  Falkner:  "Some  Aspects  of  the  Immigra- 
tion Problem."    Political  Science  Quarterly,  March,  1904,  p.  38. 

Our  statistics  of  emigration  do  not  go  back  of  the  fiscal  year  ended 
June  30,  1908.  Nor  can  they  be  accepted  as  quite  reliable,  being  of 
necessity  based  upon  the  declarations  of  the  aliens  at  the  time  of  their 
departure.  The  total  number  of  departing  aliens  for  the  period  from 
July  i,  1907,  to  June  30,  1920,  exceeded  the  number  of  avowed  "emi- 
grants" by  2,513,000,  whereas  the  total  number  of  admitted  aliens  ex- 
ceeded the  number  of  immigrants  only  by  1,867,000,  which  shows  that 


IS 


\/ 


III.    Monthly  immigration  and  emigration,  from  July,  1907,  to 
May,  1909  (thousands). 


646,000  persons  classified  as  "non-emigrant  aliens,"  i,  e.t  26  per  cent, 
of  that  class,  did  not  return  to  the  United  States.  See  Appendix,  Table 
XXX. 

91 


Immigration  and  Labor 


It  will  be  observed  that  the  tide  of  immigration  was  rising 
until  1907,  with  a  slight  set-back  during  the  Presidential 
year  1904.  During  the  industrial  crisis  of  1908  immigration 
dropped  at  once  nearly  a  million,  compared  with  the  high- 
water  mark  of  the  previous  year,  while  emigration  from  the 
United  States  was  about  twice  the  number  of  1906.  The 
result  was  a  net  loss  of  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  million  through 
emigration.  In  1909,  with  returning  business  confidence 
immigration  increased  and  emigration  receded  to  its  nor- 
mal level  of  the  years  1903- 1906.*  The  same  tendencies 
appear  still  more  clearly  if  the  returns  are  compared  by 
months,  as  in  Table  9,  and  Diagram  III.  on  p.  91.* 

TABLE  9. 

AVERAGE  MONTHLY  IMMIGRATION  AND  EMIGRATION.      (THOUSANDS), 
1907-1909. 


Net  immigration(  -f  ) 

Period 

Admitted 

Departed 

or  emigration  (  —  ) 

July  i-October  31  ,  1907 
November,  1907 

116 
132 

47 
94 

+  69 

+  38 

Dec.  i,  1907-Aug.  31,  1908 

45 

59 

~    14 

Sept.  i,  I9o8-Feb.  28,  1909 

6l 

33 

.       +   28 

March-  April,  1909 

137 

24 

+  113 

1  An  examination  of  the  Italian  statistics  of  emigration  to  the  United 
States  and  the  return  movement  from  the  United  States  leads  the  Immi- 
gration Commission  to  the  conclusion  "that  as  a  rule  the  causes  which 
retard  emigration  also  accelerate  the  exodus  from  the  United  States.  .  .  . 
The  effect  of  financial  and  industrial  depressions  in  the  United  States 
is    clearly    apparent.  .  .  .    The    most    conspicuous    instance  .  .  . 
occurred  in  the  year  1894,  following  the  industrial  depression  of  that 
period.     In  that  year  the  outward  movement  from  Italy  decreased  and 
the  inward  movement  increased  to  such  an  extent  that  the  number  re- 
turning was  848  to  every  I  ooo  emigrating.  The  same  tendency  was  shown 
again  in  1904,  immediately  following  the  financial  depression  of  the  pre- 
ceding year. " — Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  4,  p.  229. 

2  Annual  Reports  of  the  Commissioner-General  of  Immigration,  1908, 
p.  228,  and  1910,  p.  14.     The  monthly  figures  are  for  immigrant  and 
emigrant  aliens,  as  defined  in  the  statistics  of  the  Bureau  of  Immigration. 
These  two  classes  are  not  identical  with  third-class  passengers  arriving 


Immigration  and  the  Labor  Market 

Prom  July  I,  to  October  31,  1907,  immigration  and  emi- 
gration went  on  normally.  The  latter  part  of  October 
witnessed  the  outbreak  of  the  crisis,  and  the  next  month 
emigration  doubled.  Immigration  still  remained  normal, 
inasmuch  as  those  who  arrived  here  in  November  had  left 
their  homes  before  the  crisis.  But  from  December  immigra- 
tion dropped  to  one  third  of  the  number  of  arrivals  in  No- 
vember. During  the  next  nine  months  emigration  exceeded 
immigration  by  14,000  persons  monthly.  From  September 
I,  1908,  the  situation  began  to  improve,  and  the  number  of 
immigrants  went  up  again,  while  departures  went  down. 
In  the  spring  of  the  next  year  immigration  and  emigration 
resumed  their  normal  relation.  It  is  evident  that  the 
immigration  movement  promptly  responds  to  the  business 
situation  in  the  UnitedyStates. 

The  question  arises:  How  does  immigration  adjust  itself 
to  business  conditions  in  America?  The  method  by  which 
this  adjustment  is  effected  is  thus  described  by  the  Immi- 
gration Commission: 

It  is  entirely  safe  to  assert  that  letters  from  persons  who  have  emi- 
grated to  friends  at  home  have  betp  the  immediate  cause  of  by  far  the 
greater  part  of  the  remarkable  movement  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe  to  the  United  States  during  the  past  twenty-five  years.  There 
is  hardly  a  village  or  community  in  Southern  Italy  and  Sicily  that  has 
not  contributed  a  portion  of  its  population  to  swell  the  tide  of  emigration 
to  the  United  States,  and  the  same  is  true  of  large  areas  of  Austria, 
Hungary,  Greece,  Turkey,  and  the  Balkan  States.  ...  It  was  fre- 
quently stated  to  members  of  the  Commission  that  letters  from  persons 
who  had  emigrated  to  America  were  passed  from  hand  to  hand  until 
most  of  the  emigrants'  friends  and  neighbors  were  acquainted  with  the 
contents.  In  periods  of  industrial  activity,  as  a  rule,  the  letters  so 
circulated  contain  optimistic  references  to  wages  and  opportunities  for 
employment  in  the  United  States.  ...  The  reverse  is  true  during 
seasons  of  industrial  depression  in  the  United  States.  At  such  times 
intending  emigrants  are  quickly  informed  by  their  friends  in  the  United 

and  departing.     Those  aliens  who  go  to  Europe  with  the  expectation 
of  returning  may  never  come  again,  yet  they  are  not  included  among 
"  emigrant  aliens. "     As  a  result,  the  net  emigration  is  lower  in  this  1 
in  the  preceding  table. 


94 


Immigration  and  Labor 


States  relative  to  conditions  of  employment,  and  a  great  falling  off  in 
the  tide  of  emigration  is  the  immediate  result.  .  .  .  Emigrants  as  a 
rule  are  practically  assured  that  employment  awaits  them  in  America 
before  they  leave  their  homes  for  ports  of  embarkation.  ...  Ir,  fact 
it  may  be  said  that  immigrants,  or  at  least  newly -arrived  immigrants, 
are  substantially  the  agencies  which  keep  the  American  labor  market 
supplied  with  unskilled  laborers  from  Europe.  ...  As  a  rule,  each 
immigrant  simply  informs  his  nearest  friends  that  employment  can  be 
had  and  advises  them  to  come.  It  is  these  personal  appeals  which, 
more  than  all  other  agencies,  promote  and  regulate  the  tide  of  European 
emigration  to  America.1 

These  conclusions  of  the  Immigration  Commission  are 
corroborated  by  Table  10. 

TABLE  TO. 
IMMIGRANTS'  CONNECTIONS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES.* 


Immigrant  aliens 
admitted 

Numbers 
(Thousands) 

Percentages 

1908 

1909 

1910 

1908 

1909 

1910 

Total 

783 

752 

1042 

100 

IOO 

IOO 

82 
13 
5 

Going  to  join: 
Relative  . 

596 
128 

59 

t 
583 

122 

47 

857 
133 
52 

76 

16 

8 

77 
17 
6 

Friend    

Neither  

4  It  appears  that  most  of  the  immigrants  come  to  join 
relatives,  and  that  only  a  small  proportion  of  those  who 
land  here  have  neither  relatives  nor  friends  to  meet  them 
on  arrival.  This  percentage  is  much  smaller  for  the  new 
immigration  than  for  the  old,  viz.,  3  per  cent  for  the  former 
as  against  10.6  per  cent  for  the  latter.3 

There  is  a  remarkable  coincidence  of  the  percentage 
ratios  for  the  fiscal  years  ending  June  30,  1908  and  1909. 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  pp.  187-189. 

a  Annual  Reports  of  the  Commissioner-General  of  Immigration,  1908, 
p.  15;  1909,  p.  23;  1910,  p.  21. 

*  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  4,  Table  38.  The  figures 
are  for  1908  and  1909. 


Immigration  and  the  Labor  Market      95 

Both  were  partly  affected  by  the  crisis.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  year  1910  shows  an  addition  of  274,000,  i.  e.  47  per  cent, 
to  the  number  of  immigrants  coming  to  join  their  relatives, 
while  the  number  of  persons  who  came  in  1908-1910  to 
join  friends,  and  the  number  of  those  who  seemingly  had 
neither  relatives  nor  friends  in  the  United  States,  exhibit 
only  slight  fluctuations  from  year  to  year.  This  means 
that,  as  soon  as  conditions  improved,  the  first  thought  of 
the  older  immigrants  was  of  their  kin  whom  they  had  left 
behind;  friends  came  next. 

The  correctness  of  this  interpretation  is  supported  by 
Table  n,  which  shows  the  fluctuations  in  the  number  of 
immigrants  whose  passage  was  paid  by  their  American 
relatives,  compared  with  the  number  of  dependents  ad- 
mitted— in  official  terminology,  "no  occupation  (including 
women  and  children) " —  and  also  the  fluctuations  in  the 
number  of  persons  whose  passage  was  paid  by  persons 
"other  than  self  or  relative,"  i.  e.  by  friends.1  The  fiscal 
year  ending  June  30,  1908,  included  four  prosperous  months 
from  July  to  October,  1907.  Moreover,  many  of  those 
who  reached  the  United  States  later  in  the  year  had  been 
provided  with  steamship  tickets  before  the  crisis.  Their 
American  relatives  and  friends  must  have  been  saving 
the  money  with  which  their  passage  was  paid,  for  some 
months  previous  to  their  landing.  Steamship  tickets  are 
quite  commonly  sold  on  small  weekly  payments.  The  full 
effect  of  the  crisis  therefore  manifested  itself  during  the 
next  fiscal  year  (beginning  July  I,  1908),  when  the  number 
of  immigrants  who  arrived  on  tickets  prepaid  by  their 
American  relatives  dropped  twenty  per  cent.  In  1910 
their  number  again  came  up  to  the  level  of  1908.  In  1908 
the  number  of  such  immigrants  exceeded  by  32,000  the 
number  of  dependents  coming  to  join  their  relatives  who 
had  preceded  them.  Evidently  some  of  the  resident  aliens 
had  raised  the  means  to  send  for  their  brothers,  sisters,  and 

'  Report  of  the  Commissioner-General  of  Immigration,  1908,  pp.  15, 

35;  1999,  w-  23.  4*;  ifit,  »•  2I-  *»• 


96 


Immigration  and  Labor 


J 


other  self-supporting  relatives,  in  addition  to  the  members 
of  their  immediate  households.  In  1909  the  number  of 
immigrants  assisted  by  their  American  relatives  was  barely 
equal  to  the  total  number  of  dependents  who  came  to  join 
their  husbands  and  fathers.  Apparently  while  employ- 
ment was  scarce  the  foreign-born  workman  could  spare  no 
money  to  send  for  his  more  distant  relatives.  In  1910  im- 
proved business  conditions  again  brought  to  this  country 
quite  a  number  of  breadwinners  (14,000)  whose  passage 
was  paid  by  their  American  relatives.  The  number  of 
immigrants  assisted  by  their  American  friends  showed 
similar  fluctuations. 

TABLE    it. 

ASSISTED  IMMIGRATION 


Year'  Ending  June  30 

1908 

1909 

1910 

Assisted  immigrants  (thousands)  : 
Passage  paid,  by  relative    .  . 

275 

22O 

27J. 

Dependents       

24.  -I 

221 

*/4 

2OO 

Difference  

+32 

—    I 

+  14 

IO 

8 

12 

* Another  potent  agency  which  regulates  immigration  is 
the  great  number  of  returning  immigrants.  As  a  rule, 
says  the  Immigration  Commission,  they  are  those  who 
have  succeeded.  "The  money  they  can  show  makes  a 
vivid  impression.  They  are  dispensers  of  information  and 
inspiration,  and  are  often  willing  to  follow  up  the  inspira- 
tion by  loans  to  prospective  emigrants."1  During  the 
ten -year  period  1900-1909,  three  million  people  returned  to 
Europe  from  the  United  States.  (See  Table  8  above.) 
Compared  with  this  army  of  promoters  of  immigration, 
1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vqj.  4,  p.  58. 


Immigration  and  the  Labor  Market       97 

the  much  blamed  steamship  agent  fades  into  insignificance. 
A  simple  calculation  will  show  that  the  number  of  steamship 
agents  is  grossly  exaggerated  by  popular  imagination.  In 
order  to  make  something  by  "stimulating  immigration," 
an  agent  must  sell  at  least  one  ticket  a  week;  his  commission 
on  $37,  which  is  the  average  cost  of  passage  from  Europe, 
could  not  be  too  great  at  that.  A  good  many  tickets  are 
prepaid  on  this  side;  yet  if  every  steamship  ticket  were 
sold  through  an  agent,  the  annual  emigration  of  a  million 
persons  could  barely  support  twenty  thousand  agents. 
This  scarcely  equals  one  per  cent  of  the  volunteer  force  of 
immigration  promoters  who  have  returned  from  America 
within  the  past  ten  years, — with  every  allowance  made  for 
duplications.  It  is  clearly  against  all  sense  of  proportion  to 
magnify  the  "propaganda"  of  a  few  thousand  ticket  agents 
into  a  contributing  cause  of  this  modern  Volkerwanderung.  * 
The  facts  brought  to  light  by  the  investigation  of  the  Immi- 
gration Commission  in  Europe  will  tend  to  dissipate  this 
popular  delusion.  The  Commission  found  that  in  Greece, 
which  "according  to  its  population  furnishes  more  immi- 
grants to  the  United  States  than  any  other  country  .  .  . 
solicitation  by  steamship  companies  probably  plays  rela- 
tively a  small  part  even  as  a  contributory  cause  of  the 
movement."  In  Austria  "government  officials  and  others 
interested  in  the  emigration  situation  expressed  the  belief 
that  the  solicitations  of  agents  had  little  effect  on  the 
emigration  movement,  which  was  influenced  almost  entirely 
by  economic  conditions."  Unquestionably,  steamship 
agents  in  all  parts  of  Europe  solicit  business  in  competition 
with  one  another,  but  they  do  it,  as  Mr.  T.  V.  Powderly 
has  found,  "much  as  insurance  agents  do.  ...  One 
method  adopted  is  to  translate  editorials  and  articles  from 
American  newspapers  relative  to  the  prosperity  of  the 
United  States,  which  articles  are  distributed  among  pros- 

1  There  are  some  people  who  similarly  believe  that  the  trade-union 
movement  of  our  days  is  "stimulated"  by  the  "labor  agitators," 
walking  delegates,  and  business  agents  of  the  unions. 


98  Immigration  and  Labor 

pective  emigrants. "  The  Immigration  Commission  learned 
in  Hungary  that  steamship  agents  addressed  "personal 
letters  to  prospective  emigrants  advising  how  to  leave 
Hungary  without  the  consent  of  the  government.  Letters 
of  this  nature  were  presented  to  the  Commission.  Some 
of  them  are  accompanied  by  crudely  drawn  maps  indicating 
the  location  of  all  the  Hungarian  control  stations  on  the 
Austrian  border,  and  the  routes  of  travel  by  which  such 
stations  can  be  avoided."1  It  is  clear  that  such  letters 
can  appeal  only  to  those  who  have  already  made  up  their 
minds  to  emigrate.  The  immigrant  is  not  as  simple-mindea 
and  credulous  as  he  is  popularly  represented  to  be.  ' '  Several 
American  States  have  attempted  to  attract  immigrants  by 
the  distribution  in  Europe  of  literature  advertising  the 
attractions  of  such  States.  A  few  States  ha.  •  ...  .om- 
missioners  to  various  countries  for  the  purpose  of  inducing 
immigration,  but  although  some  measure  of  success  has 
attended  such  efforts,  the  propaganda  has  had  little  effect 
on  the  immigration  movement  as  a  whole. ' ' 2  There  appears 
to  be  no  sound  reason  Why  the  "editorials  and  articles 
from  American  newspapers  relative  to  the  prosperity  of 
the  United  States, "  circulated  by  a  steamship  agent,  should 
have  a  greater  effect  with  the  European  peasant  than  the 
literature  distributed  by  an  official  representative  of  an 
American  State.  The  conclusion  reached  by  the  Immigra- 
tion Commission  is  that  "immigration  from  Europe  pro- 
ceeds according  to  well-defined  individual  plans  rather  than 
in  a  haphazard  way. " 3  The  Commission  qualifies  this  con- 
clusion by  the  statement  that  since  "selling  steerage  tickets 
to  America  is  the  sole  or  chief  occupation  of  large  numbers 
of  persons  in  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe,"  and  since 
"these  local  agents,  as  a  rule,  solicit  business,"  they  "con- 
sequently encourage  emigration."4  This  argument  might 
be  made  broader  by  substituting  the  principal  for  the  agent : 
it  is  the  steamship  companies  that  encourage  emigration  by 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  4,  p.  63. 

2  Ibid.,  vol.  i,  p.  192.          3  Ibid.,  p.  188.  4  Ibid.,  vol.  4,  p.  62. 


Immigration  and  the  Labor  Market      99 

making-it  their  business  to  sell  steerage  tickets  to  America, 
for  it  is  a  self-evident  truth  that  should  the  steamship 
companies  discontinue  the  sale  of  steerage  tickets,  emigra- 
tion would  be  discouraged.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  the 
Immigration  Commission  recognizes  the  difficulty  for  the 
ordinary  laborer  in  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  to  raise 
the  price  of  a  steerage  ticket,  "no  matter  how  strong  the 
desire  to  emigrate  may  be, "  the  question  is,  by  what  means 
the  local  agents  encourage  the  emigration  of  impecunious 
laborers  who  have  no  relatives  or  friends  in  America  willing 
to  advance  them  the  price  of  a  ticket.  The  popular  answer, 
is  that  the  "new  immigration"  is  largely  "stimulated"  byl 
employers  of  labor  masquerading  as  "friends"  of  the  immi- 
grant It  is  believed  that  "the  ends  of  the  earth  have 
been  ranra  'died  in  the  search  for  the  low  standards  of  living 
combined  with  patient  industriousness. "  * 

Representatives  of  labor  speak  indiscriminately  of  all 
Slav  and  Italian  immigration  as  "imported,"  in  other 
words  as  contract  labor.  The  truth  is  that  the  frequency 
of  the  practice  in  recent  times  has  been  greatly  exaggerated 
by  popular  imagination.  The  investigations  of  the  Im- 
migration Commission,  both  in  the  United  States  and  in 
Europe,  failed  to  disclose  any  evidence  of  systematic  im- 
portation of  contract  laborers. 2  In  the  Connellsville  coke 
region  of  Pennsylvania,  old  inhabitants  remember  that  as 
far  back  as  1882  "some  companies  had  agents  in  -Europe 
soliciting  and  encouraging  the  immigration  of  Slovaks, 
Poles,  and  Bohemians  .  .  .  and  some  immigrants  may  have 
been  imported  as  contract  laborers.1'3  Of  what  little  conse- 
quence these  importations  could  have  been,  is  clear  from  the 
fact  that  eight  years  later,  at  the  census  of  1890,  there  were 

1  John  R.  Commons:  Races  and  Immigrants  in  America,  p.  152. 

a  The  inquiries  made  by  the  Commission  in  Europe  "did  not  disclose 
that  actual  contracts  involving  promises  of  employment  between 
employers  in  the  United  States  and  laborers  in  Europe  were  responsible 
for  any  considerable  part  of  the  present  emigration  movement."  Reports, 
vol.  4  p.  60.  No  figures  or  specific  cases  are  cited.  See  also,  further, 
Chapter  XIX.  3  /&«*•,  vol.  6,  p.  257. 


ioo  Immigration  and  Labor 

enumerated  in  Fayette  and  Westmoreland  counties  (the 
Connellsviile  region)  4788  natives  of  Hungary,  Bohemia, 
and  Poland,  of  both  sexes,  all  ages,  and  all  occupations.1 
It  is  quite  conceivable  that  in  the  case  of  a  strike  a  great 
corporation  might  have  resorted  to  the  importation  of  a 
force  of  strikebreakers  regardless  of  cost.  There  is  a 
"legend"  in  the  Pennsylvania  anthracite  field  that  during 
a  strike  in  1870  a  breaker  belonging  to  Eckley  B.  Coxe  was 
burned  down,  whereupon  he  secured  through  his  superin^ 
tendent  "two  shiploads  of  his  Hungarian  countrymen  to 
man  the  new  structure.  There  is  no  evidence  of  any  further 
importations  of  immigrants  by  the  mine  owners,  since  there  han 
been  no  necessity  for  such  an  effort.112  With  immigration 
running  into  hundreds  of  thousands  annually,  there  i»7 
no  economic  advantage  in  importing  a  few  thousand  a 
year,  as  they  could  have  no  effect  upon  labor  conditions  in 
general.3  On  the  other  hand,  their  importation  would  in> 
volve  an  outlay  of  money  for  their  passage  without  any 
guarantee  of  repayment,  as  the  contract  of  employment 
could  not  be  enforced  in  law  in  case  the  laborer  chose  to 
break  it.  It  is  not  usual  for  an  employer  of  labor  in  this 
country  to  advance  a  sum  equal  to  a  month's  wages  without 
any  security  to  a  laborer  in  his  employ.  That  the  personal 
credit  of  the  laborer  should  be  enhanced  by  his  absence 
from  the  United  States  hardly  accords  with  common  ex- 
perience. Apart  from  economic  considerations,  the  Immi- 
gration Commission  finds  that  "owing  to  the  rigidity  of  the 
law  and  the  fact  that  special  provision  is  made  for  its  en- 
forcement there  are  probably  at  the  present  time  relatively 
few  actual  contract  laborers  admitted."4  This  conclusion 

1  Population  of  the  United  States,  XI.  Census,  vol.  i.,  p.  654  (com- 
puted). 

3  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  16,  p.  661. 

* A  sound  view  of  the  question  is  taken  by  Prof.  Adams  and  Dr. 
Sumner  in  their  book  on  I&bor  Problems,  wHere  they  say  that  under  the 
influence  of  the  increase  of  immigration  it  is  no  longer  profitable  to 
"induce**  immigration  (pp.  90-91). 

«  Reports,  vol.  i,p.  29. 


Immigration  and  the  Labor  Market     101 

ought  to  be  accepted  as  final.  It  would  be  impossible  for 
any  corporation  or  labor  agent  to  operate  on  a  large  scale 
in  violation  of  the  law  without  being  detected.  Human 
experience  has  no  record  of  a  secret  guarded  by  a  multitude. 
The  few  violations  of  the  contract  labor  law  that  elude  the 
vigilance  of  the  immigration  officials  cannot  affect  the  labor 
market. 

•'The  supply  of  immigrant  labor  is  regulated  by  free  com- 
petition, like  that  of  any  other  commodity.  It  may  some- 
times exceed  the  demand  and  at  other  times  fall  short  of 
it ;  in  the  long  run,  however,  supply  adjusts  itself  to  demand. 
If  we  compare  the  totals  for  industrial  cycles,  including 
years  of  panic,  of  depression,  and  of  prosperity,  we  find  a 
remarkable  regularity  in  the  ratio  of  immigration  to  popula- 
tion. In  Table  12  the  addition  to  population  through 
immigration  during  the  twenty-year  period  1891-1910  is 
collated  with  the  corresponding  figures  for  the  preceding 
two  periods  of  equal  length. 

TABLE  12. 

POPULATION  AND  IMMIGRATION 


Census  Population 

Immigration  for  twenty  years  following 

Year 

Thousands 

Thousands 

•    Percentage  ratio  to 
population  at 
preceding  census 

Period 

1850 

23,192 
38,558 
62,622 

5,019 
8,059 

12,483 

21.2 
20.9 
19.9 

1851-1870 
1871-1890 
I89I-I910 

l8?O.  .  . 

5*  1800.  . 

f> 

\    \-> 

These  figures  show  that  during  the  past  sixty  years,  not- 
Jlvithstanding  the  fluctuations  from  year  to  year,  in  the 
long  run  the  ratio  of  immigration  to  population  has  been 
well-nigh  constant,  with  a  slightly  declining  tendency 
as  population  has  grown.  Although  the  total  number  of 
immigrants  for  the  period  1891-1910  was  50  per  cent  in 


/ 
^ 


Immigration  and  Labor 

tiie  total  for  the  preceding  period,  yet  the  addition 
to  population  was  relatively  smaller  during  the  later  period. 
It  has  also  been  shown  (see  Table  2)  that  the  per  cent 
distribution  of  immigrants  by  occupations  has  undergone 
little  change  during  the  past  half-century,  notwithstanding 
the  rise  and  fall  in  numbers  from  decade  to  decade.  The 
ratio  of  skilled  mechanics  has  during  the  last  thirty  years 
remained  at  20  per  cent,  while  unskilled  laborers  have  made 
up  57  per  cent  of  all  immigrants.  This  regularity  indicates 
that  the  demand  for  labor  determines  the  character,  as 
as  the  volume  of  immigration. 


CHAPTER  V  . 

THE  DEMAND  FOR  LABOR  IN  AGRICULTURE 

THE  preference  of  the  "new"  immigrants  for  city  employ- 
ments over  agricultural  pursuits  is  viewed  with  appre- 
hension by  philanthropists  and  sociologists.  It  is  evident, 
however,  that  even  the  "desirable"  immigrant  from  North- 
ern and  Western  Europe  who  brings  with  him  on  an  average 
$55*  lacks  the  necessary  means  to  rent  a  farm,  let  alone  to 
buy  one.2  At  best  he  can  only  obtain  employment  as  a 
farm  hand,  which  depends  primarily  upon  the  demand  for 
farm  labor.  And  here  he  is  confronted  with  the  fact  that 
the  American  farmer  cannot  keep  his  own  sons  on  the  farm. 
The  industrial  development  of  the  United  States  has 
manifested  itself  in  a  relative  decrease,  and  in  some  sections 
in  a  numerical  decrease  of  the  rural  population.  In  New 
England  and  New  York  an  actual  depopulation  of  the  rural 
districts  was  recorded  by  the  census  of  1890.  The  next 
census  showed  a  loss  of  rural  population  in  New  Jersey, 
Delaware,  Ohio,  and  Kansas.  Maryland  and  Illinois  sus- 
tained similar  losses  from  1880  to  1890,  but  recovered  them 
within  the  next  ten  years.3  The  published  bulletins  of  the 
last  census  show  a  numerical  decrease  of  the  rural  population 
in  the  following  States  of  the  Central  West: 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  4  (in  press). 

3  The  average  value  per  farm,  exclusive  of  real  estate,  in  1900, 
amounted  to  $1173.  H.  W.  Quaintance:  The  Influence  of  Farm 
Machinery  en  Production  and  Labor,  p.  58. 

*  Supplementary  Analysis,  XII.  Census,  p.  78,  Table  XXXIX 

103 


104  Immigration  and  Labor 

TABLE  13. 

DECREASE   OF   THE    POPULATION   OF    RURAL   TERRITORY,    I90O-I9IO 

State      .  Number  Per  cent 

Illinois 111,963  7.0 

Indiana 132,266  9.5 

Iowa 152,673  12.  i 

Kansas 4,919  0.5 

Michigan 9,946  0.8 

Missouri 133.489  8.0 

Ohio 93,055  5.3 

Wisconsin 8,201  0.7 

Even  where  the  total  rural  population  of  a  State  has 
increased  since  1900,  the  maps  given  in  the  census  bul- 
letins show  a  few  agricultural  counties  with  a  declining 
population. 

This  depopulation  of  rural  territory  is  due  to  emigration 
of  native  Americans  of  native  stock.  The  figures  for  1910 
are  as  yet  not  available;  the  census  of  1900  recorded  in  Kan- 
sas a  loss  of  2.8  per  cent  of  the  native  population  of  native 
parentage  in  settlements  of  less  than  2500  inhabitants,  and 
in  Nebraska  a  loss  of  i  .3  per  cent  of  the  same  element.  In 
New  England,  New  York,  and  New  Jersey  the  loss  was  still 
greater;  the  maximum  was  reached  in  Connecticut,  viz., 
16.7  per  cent.1 

The  popular  way  to  account  for  a  social  phenomenon  is 
to  seek  an  explanation  in  the  personal  tastes  and  dislikes  of 
individuals  or  racial  groups.  "Much  has  been  said  of  a 
mad  rush  to  cities,"  said  Prof.  Charles  H.  Cooley  before 
the  Michigan  Political  Science  Association,  in  July,  1902, 
"and  the  movement  has  often  been  spoken  of  as  if  it  were 
altogether  a  kind  of  dissipation,  like  going  to  the  saloon. 
But  if  there  were  no  solider  ground  for  the  migration  than 
this  we  should  find  the  migrants  plunged  into  pauperism 
and  vice  after  they  get  to  the  cities,  instead  of  pursuing 
useful  remunerative  labor  as  is  ordinarily  the  case.  The 
real  causes  of  the  decrease  of  rural  population  are  chiefly 
economic. "  These  causes  affect  the  native  and  the  foreign 

1  Supplementary  Analysis,  XII.  Census,  pp.  620-627,  Tables  10  and  1 1. 


fei 


m 


DIAGRAM  IV. 
I  1 


fifctin 

«'I«C«(JU 

Ot°Kt»» 


I  I  m 


IV.    Relative  per-capita  production  of  coal,  agricultural  staples 

and  live  stock. 

105 


io6  Immigration  and  Labor 

current  to  the  cities  alike.  Since  the  early  days  of  Irish 
and  German  immigration  the  growing  industries  of  the 
cities  have  offered  a  better  market  for  labor  than  agri- 
culture. A  comparative  view  of  the  demand  for  laboi 
in  agriculture  and  in  industry  since  1870  is  furnished  in 
Diagram  IV, where  the  per  capita  production  of  the  principal 
agricultural  staples  and  live  stock  is  compared  with  the 
per  capita  production  of  coal,  the  latter  being  chosen  as 
the  measure  of  industrial  expansion.1  Whereas  the  pro- 
duction of  coal  has  quadrupled,  the  increase  of  the  output 
of  cotton  is  only  about  90  per  cent,  the  increase  of  other 
farm  products  less  than  50  per  cent,  and  stock  breeding 
has  not  kept  pace  with  the  increase  of  population.  It  is 
patent  that  the  demand  for  farm  hands  must  have  lagged 
far  behind  the  demand  for  labor  in  manufacturing,  mining 
and  transportation. 

The  relative  number  of  persons  engaged  in  agriculture 
fell  from  21.79  per  cent  of  the  total  population  in  1840  to 
X543  Per  cent  in  1870.  This  decrease  was  not  confined 
to  any  one  State  or  section,  but  was  universal,  with  the 
exception  of  Florida.  In  New  York  and  all  New  England 
States  there  was  during  the  same  period  an  absolute  de- 
crease of  the  agricultural  population  from  869,000  to  697,000, 
i.  £.,  20  per  cent.2  The  revolution  wrought  in  American 
farming  by  the  industrial  development  of  the  past  seventy 
years  has  tended  to  reduce  the  demand  for  labor  on  the 
farm. 

The  American  farm  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury was  the  seat  of  a  highly  diversified  business,  comprising 
not  only  the  raising  of  food  and  of  material  for  clothing, 

xThe  figures  for  Diagram  IV  are  taken  from  an  article  by  Prof. 
Homer  C.  Price  on  "The  Reorganization  of  American  Farming"  in 
Popular  Science  Monthly ,  May,  1910,  p.  464;  the  Census  Report  on  Mines 
and  Quarries,  1902,  p.  669,  Table  6;  and  Statistical  Abstract,  1911, 
Table  No.  335.  The  figures  for  agricultural  products  are  averages  for 
each  decade  beginning  1866-1875  and  for  the  quadrennial  period  1905- 
1908.  Coal  production  per  capita  is  for  each  census  year  since  1870. 

3  Bulletin  of  the  Department  of  Labor,  No.  1 1 ,  pp.  400, 402. 


The  Demand  for  Labor  in  Agriculture   107 

but  also  the  preparation  and  manufacture  of  these  pro- 
ducts.1 Wakefield,  in  1833,  gave  the  following  description 
of  the  American  farmer: 

Free  Americans,  who  cultivate  the  soil,  follow  many  other  occupations. 
Some  portion  of  the  furniture  and  tools  which  they  use  is  commonly 
made  by  themselves.  They  frequently  build  their  own  houses,  and 
carry  to  market,  at  whatever  distance,  the  produce  of  their  own  industry. 
They  are  spinners  and  weavers,  they  make  soap  and  candles,  as  well  as, 
in  many  cases,  shoes  and  clothes  for  their  own  use.2 

With  such  a  variety  of  occupations  there  was  work  for  a 
hired  man  at  all  seasons  of  the  year.  But  the  development 
of  manufactures  has  differentiated  from  the  farming  business 
one  industry  after  another  and  removed  them  from  the 
farm.3  The  time  during  which  a  hired  man  can  be  kept 
employed  on  the  farm  has  been  reduced  in  consequence  to  a 
few  months  in  the  year. 

Still  until  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  mills 
were  quite  commonly  run  by  water  power,  the  supply  of 
which  determined  their  location.  The  small  country  towns 
were  alive  with  little  industries,  which  offered  to  the  farm 
laborer  a  prospect  of  employment  during  the  winter  when 
work  was  scarce  on  the  farm. 4  But  the  general  substitution 
cf  steam  for  water  power  and  the  consequent  concentration 
of  industry  removed  the  factories  from  the  small  towns  to 

1 L.  H.  Bailey:  The  State  and  the  Farmer,  pp.  6, 7. 

3  E.  G.  Wakefield:  England  and  America,  vol.  i.,  pp.  21,22. 

a  "At  the  present  time,  throughout  probably  the  greater  part  of  the 
country  .  .  .  butter-making  is  ordinarily  done  away  from  the  farm, " 
but  in  1870,  "butter  was  made  ...  on  the  farms  and  as  part  of  farm 
work.  The  development  of  the  agricultural  implement  industry  is 
another  instance.  The  manufacture  of  the  implements  and  machines 
from  being  a  feature  of  farm  work  has  become  a  distinct  branch  of 
manufactures,  employing,  according  to  the  returns  of  the  XII  census, 
during  the  census  year  reported  on,  an  'average  number'  of  46,582 
persons  besides  10,046  salaried  officials,  clerks,  etc."— M.  W.  Quaintance , 
loc.  cit.,  pp.  44-45,  74. 

*  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  x.,  pp.  cl.  and  889.  Report 
o*,,Cdnditi<w  of  Woman  and  Child  Wage-Earners  in  the  United  States, 
vM.ix.,p.48. 


io8  Immigration  and  Labor 

the  great  manufacturing  cities.  The  opportunity  to  earn 
a  full  year's  wages  in  a  rural  community  was  gone,  and  the 
farm  laborer  followed  the  factory  to  the  city. x 

Along  with  the  progress  of  division  of  labor  between 
farm  and  factory,  the  invention  of  labor-saving  machinery 
tended  to  displace  the  wage-earner  from  agriculture.  Down 
to  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  agricultural 
methods  of  the  American  farmer  were  as  primitive  as  those 
of  the  Russian  peasant  of  the  present.  The  first  patent  for 
a  cast-iron  plow  was  granted  as  early  as  1797,  but  it  took 
many  years  before  it  had  overcome  the  prejudice  of  the 
farmers  who  believed  that  the  use  of  cast-iron  "poisoned  the 
land."  About  1850,  cast-iron  plows  had  come  into 
general  use,  but  grass  was  still  mowed  with  the  scythe, 
grain  was  cut  with  the  sickle  and  threshed  with  the  flail. 
Flailing  and  winnowing  grain  was  the  chief  farm  work  of 
the  winter.  As  late  as  the  year  1870,  the  editor  of  the 
New  American  Farm  Book  questioned  the  advisability  of 
using  the  large  threshing  machines  and  advised  for  the 
"moderate  farmer"  the  use  of  a  hand  thresher  as  the  more 
economical,  permitting  the  work  to  be  done  "in  winter, 
when  there  is  more  leisure  to  do  it."  Corn  was  planted 
by  hand,  cultivated  with  the  hoe,  and  shelled  by  scraping 
the  ears  against  the  handle  of  a  frying  pan  or  the  blade  of  a 
shovel.  The  cultivation  of  a  farm  in  this  crude  way  re- 
quired a  great  deal  of  labor  and  sustained  a  steady  demand 
for  farm  help  in  all  seasons.  To-day  "there  is  hardly  a 
phase  of  farm  work  that  has  not  been  essentially  changed 
by  the  introduction  of  some  new  implement  or  machine. " 
For  planting  corn 

the  farmer  now  uses  a  check-row  planter  drawn  by  horses  and  deposit- 
ing the  seed  at  regular  intervals  so  that  the  rows  may  be  cultivated 
with  equal  facility  either  in  the  direction  of  the  planting  or  across.  As  a 
means  of  cultivating  the  corn  .  .  .  the  Jarmer  quite  commonly  uses  a 
riding  plow.  Steam  power  corn-huskers  and  corn-shellers  are  found. 
Instead  of  the  old  hand-method  of  shelling  corn  ...  by  which  .  .  . 

1  Report  oj  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  x.,  p.  cxlix. 


The  Demand  for  Labor  in  Agriculture   109 

hardly  six  bushels  could  be  shelled  in  a  day,  the  farmer  may  now  have 
his  corn  shelled  at  the  rate  of  a  bushel  a  minute  and  the  machine  which 
does  the  work  will  also  "carry  off  the  cobs  to  a  pile  or  into  a  wagon, 
and  deliver  the  corn  into  sacks."  Mowing  machines,  horse  hay-rakes, 
tedders,  and  stackers  have  revolutionized  the  work  of  making  hay.  It 
formerly  required  eleven  hours  of  man-labor  to  cut  and  cure  a  ton  of 
hay.  Now  the  same  work  may  be  done  in  one  hour  and  thirty 
minutes. 

''The  increased  effectiveness  of  man-labor  power  when 
aided  by  the  use  of  machinery  .  .  .  varies  from  150  per 
cent  in  the  case  of  rye  to  2244  per  cent  in  the  case  of  bar- 
ley." On  the  whole,  the  quantity  of  labor  now  requisite 
for  the  production  of  the  principal  crop  averages  "a  little 
over  one  fifth  of  the  quantity  which  would  be  requisite 
under  the  former  hand  methods  of  cultivation. "  Confining 
the  comparison  to  the  period  of  the  "new  immigration," 
"we  shall  find  that  the  effectiveness  of  the  average  (agri- 
cultural) worker  in  the  United  States  was  greater,  by  nearly 
60  per  cent,  in  1900  than  in  1880." 

The  quantity  of  labor  saved  by  machinery  in  producing 
the  average  crop  of  the  last  decade  of  the  past  century,  as 
compared  with  hand  methods  in  use  in  the  middle  of  the 
century,  is  estimated  by  Professor  Quaintance  at  450,000,000 
days. *  The  saving  represents  the  labor  of  one  and  a  half  mil- 
lion men  working  three  hundred  days  in  the  year.  This  figure 
suggests  the  reason  why  the  new  immigration  does  not  go  to 
the  farming  sections  of  the  United  States.  As  the  per  capita 
production  of  agricultural  staples  did  not  increase  as  fast 
as  the  efficiency  of  agricultural  implements  and  machinery, 
there  was  an  actual  as  well  as  a  relative  displacement  of 
labor.  The  same  writer  estimates  the  average  quantity  of 
labor  spent  in  producing  the  annual  crops  of  the  principal 
cereals  during  the  period  from  1840  to  1870,  at  173,000,000 
work  days,  and  the  average  number  of  work  days  used  for 
producing  the  annual  crops  of  the  period  1893-1896,  at 
120,000,000.  There  was  accordingly  an  actual  displace- 

1  Quaintance,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  7. 8, 10, 18,  23, 30, 73. 


no  Immigration  and  Labor 

ment  of  42  per  cent  of  farm  labor. x  Since  the  number  of 
farmers  had  meantime  increased,  there  must  have  been 
an  actual  decrease  in  the  number  of  hired  farm  hands.  In 
North  Dakota  a  farmer  who  owns  two  quarter-sections  of 
land  generally  takes  care  of  the  farm  himself,  with  his 
family,  until  spring,  and  employs  very  little  help  during 
his  busy  season.2  As  a  rule,  agricultural  laborers  are  in 
demand  only  during  the  harvesting  season. 

In  consequence  of  limited  demand,  "agricultural  labor  is 
.  .  .  the  least  paid  of  all  the  great  groups  of  occupations,  even 
allowing  for  the  laborer's  garden  and  other  privileges."3 
Aside  from  the  consensus  of  expert  opinion,  this  fact  is  es- 
tablished by  statistical  evidence  for  Kansas  and  California. 
The  former  is  predominantly  agricultural,  the  latter  indus- 
trial, but  the  XIII.  Census  shows  an  increase  of  71.2  per  cent 
in  the  value  of  implements  and  machinery  since  1900,  an 
increase  of  89.2  per  cent  in  the  value  of  live  stock,  and  an  in- 
crease of  34.5  per  cent  in  the  rural  population  of  California. 
Judged  by  the  increase  in  the  value  of  buildings  and  ma- 
chinery since  1900  both  States  are  representative  of  the 
average  for  the  United  States.4  Their  wage  statistics  may 
therefore  be  accepted  as  typical  (see  Tables  14  and  15). 

The  hours  of  labor  on  the  farms  are  longer  than  even  in 
the  steel  mills  of  Pennsylvania.  In  the  Northwest  and  in 
the  South  the  general  custom  is  to  work  from  sunrise  until 
sunset;  in  Maryland  the  hours  of  labor  in  the  dairying 
business  are  generally  from  4  or  5  o'clock  in  the  morning  to 
7  or  8  o'clock  at  night,  and  about  the  same  in  other  agri- 
cultural pursuits.5  It  is  true  that  the  hours  are  so  long 

IQuaintance,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  32-33. 

3  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  x.,  p.  846.     More  than  one 
half  of  the  farms  of  North  Dakota  at  the  XII.  Census  were  of  a  smaller 
size. — XII.  Census,  Agriculture,  Part  I.,  Table  4,  pp.  30  et  seq. 

a  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission ,  vol .  x . ,  pp .  xx.  See  also  Bulletin 
of  the  Bureau  of  Labor,  No.  72  (September,  1907),  p.  406. 

4  XIII.  Census,  vol.  i,  Population,  p.  62,  Table  39;  vol.  v.,  Agri- 
culture, p.  79,  Table  29. 

6  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  x.,  pp.  xx.,  cxix.,  cxx.,  cxxi. 
The  witness  from  Maryland  testified  that  he  "once  heard  a  public 


The  Demand  for  Labor  in  Agriculture  in 


TABLE  14. 

AVERAGE  ANNUAL  EARNINGS  OF  FARM  LABORERS  IN  KANSAS,  COMPARED 
WITH  EARNINGS  IN  SIMILAR  NON-AGRICULTURAL  OCCUPATIONS  IN 
THE  SAME  STATE, 


Number 

Average 
annual 

Average 
number  of 

Average 
number  of 

Occupation 

reported 

earnings 

days 

hours  per 

unemployed 

day 

Laborers: 

On  farms 

35 

$2Q6a 

ci 

II.  6 

In  building  trades. 

19 

323 

93 

9-3 

On  railroads 

637 

335 

Coal  miners  

24 

357 

IIS 

8-4 

TABLE  15. 

DISTRIBUTION  OF   WHITE   MALE  LABORERS,  EMPLOYED    IN  AGRICULTURE 

AND  OTHER  PURSUITS  IN  CALIFORNIA,  BY  RATES  OF  WAGES 
PER  WEEK  (WITHOUT  BOARD),  1906.3 


Number  reported 

Per  cent 

Character  of  employment 

$12.00 

or 
less 

Over 

$12.00 

Total 

$12.00 

or 
less 

0-er 

$12.00 

Total 

Agriculture                  

689 

15 

704 

97-9 

2.1 

IOO 

Stores  and  factories     

2156 

1964 

4I2O 

52.3 

47-7 

100 

Lumber  woods  and  saw  mills 

1610 

3492 

5102 

3L6 

68.4 

IOO 

Railway  construction  in  and 
around  San  Francisco  .  .  . 

556 

1746 

2302 

24.2 

75-8 

IOO 

speaker  say  that  the  farmers  settled  the  eight-hour  question  by  having 
eight  hours  before  dinner  and  eight  after." 

1 X  VI.  Annual  Report  of  the  Kansas  Bureau  of  Labor,  pp.  1 28-13 1 , 153, 

2  Including  the  cost  of  board  for  ten  months  estimated  at  £90,  given 
in  Table  2,  p.  122. 

3  Compiled  from  XII.  Biennial  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics 
of  the  State  of  California  (1905-1906),  pp.  7^-77.  80-161,  165. 


H2  Immigration  and  Labor 

only  in  harvest  and  threshing  time.  After  the  rush  i* 
over  the  working  day  averages  about  ten  hours.  But  at 
that  time  very  few  laborers  are  retained  on  the  farms. 

Long  hours,  small  pay,  and  irregular  employment  are  what 
the  immigrant  can  expeet  on  a  farm.  His  preference  for 
other  employment  seems  to  call  for  no  explanation  by 
special  racial  characteristics;  it  is  merely  another  illustra- 
tion of  the  rule  that  immigration  follows  the  demand  for 
labor.  "  In  the  settlement  of  agricultural  districts  a  point 
is  reached  beyond  which  any  considerable  growth  of  agri- 
cultural population  is  possible  only  if  there  is  a  change  to 
more  intensive  forms  of  agriculture.  ...  If  there  is  no 
such  change,  the  further  growth  of  population  must  con- 
sist in  the  development  of  urban  or  non-agricultural 
communities."1 

This  point  has  been  reached  in  the  United  States.  The 
public  domain  has  practically  all  passed  into  private  occu- 
pation. Land  values  during  the  last  decade  have  climbed 
to  unheard-of  heights. 2  At  the  same  time  Western  Canada 
offers  to  settlers  vast  areas  of  public  land  practically  free. 

1 XII.  Census,  Supplementary  Analysis,  p.  303. 

*  The  highest  average  value  per  acre  in  1900  was  found  for  Illinois, 
viz.,  $46.  At  the  XIII.  Census  the  following  States  exceeded  that 
maximum: 

State  Value  per  acre 

California  $47.00 

New  Jersey  48.00 

Ohio  53.00 

Indiana  62.00 

Iowa  82.00 

Illinois  95-00 

The  lowest  average  value  in  1900  was  in  Wyoming,  viz.,  $2.88;  in  1910 
the  average  value  in  that  State  reached  $10.00  per  acre.  The  lowest 
average  in  1910  was  $8.77,  computed  for  New  Mexico.  The  average 
value  per  acre  for  the  United  States  doubled  from  1900  to  1910,  but 
the  maximum  increase  was  as  high  as  475  per  cent,  viz.,  from  $6.00 
to  $34.00  in  Arizona.  XIII.  Census,  vol.  v.,  Agriculture,  p.  80,  Table 
30. 


The  Demand  for  Labor  in  Agriculture  113 

It  seems  that  for  some  time  to  come  the  Canadian  North- 
west will  furnish  the  same  opportunities  for  extensive  agri- 
culture as  the  Western  States  did  a  generation  ago.  Western 
farmers  find  it  profitable  to  dispose  of  their  land  in  the 
United  States  and  to  take  up  public  land-  in  Western 
Canada. x  The  emigration  of  American  farmers  to  Canada 
has  reached  considerable  proportions.2  In  the  United 
States  a  market  for  agricultural  labor  may  grow  up  in  the 
future  with  the  eventual  spread  of  intensive  agriculture. 
But  this  is  a  problem  for  the  American  farmer  to  solve. 
The  immigrant  should  not  be  burdened  with  the  mission 
to  reform  the  methods  of  American  agriculture. 

1  The  average  value  of  land  and  buildings  per  farm  in  Iowa  increased 
from  the  XII.  to  the  XIII.  Census  by  more  than  $8000.  Practically  all 
of  this  represented  increased  land  value.  "Canadian  officials  estimate 
that  in  the  fiscal  year  1909  the  United  States  emigrants  brought  to 
Canada,  in  stock,  cash,  and  effects,  upwards  of  $60,000,000."  (Reports 
of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  2,  p.  616.)  This  is  equivalent  to 
an  average  of  $1000  per  individual  immigrant,  or  to  $4000  per  family. 

*  In  1910  the  number  of  emigrants  from  the  United  States  to  Canada 
reached  103,984. — Ibid. 


CHAPTER  VI 

UNEMPLOYMENT 

A.     The  Causes  of  Unemployment 

AS  far  back  as  1901  Prof.  John  R.  Commons,  in  his 
report  on  immigration  prepared  for  the  Industrial 
Commission,  reached  the  conclusion  that  immigrants  come 
to  this  country  "in  obedience  to  the  opportunities  for 
employment. ' ' z  Still  the  force  of  statistics  must  apparently 
yield  to  the  living  proof,  furnished  by  the  ever-present 
"army  of  the  unemployed/'  that  there  are  already  more 
men  than  jobs  in  the  United  States.  There  seems  to  be  no 
escape  from  the  conclusion  that  every  new  immigrant,  in 
order  to  live,  must  take  away  the  job  from  some  one  else 
who  has  been  here  before.2  A  study  of  the  sources  of  un- 
employment shows  the  fallacy  of  the  premises  upon  which 
the  popular  argument  is  based. 

Unemployment  in  its  present  form  is  a  problem  peculiar 
to  our  industrial  system,  but  alternations  of  work  and  in- 
voluntary idleness  were  incidents  of  the  life  on  the  old  New 
England  farm  as  well.  The  disappearance  of  slavery  in 
New  England  was  in  no  small  degree  due  to  the  long  winters 
during  which  the  time  of  the  negro  slave  could  not  be  fully 

1  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  309. 

3  "The  popular  conception  is  of  industry  as  rigidly  limited — a  sphere 
of  cast  iron  in  which  men  struggle  for  living  room;  in  which  the  greater 
the  room  taken  by  any  one  man  the  less  must  there  be  for  others;  in 
which  the  greater  the  number  of  men  the  worst  must  be  the  case  of 
all." — W.  H.  Beveridge:  Unemployment,  a  Problem  of  Industry,  p.  n. 

114 


Unemployment  115 

employed.  The  introduction  of  the  factory  system  in  New 
England  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  ad- 
vocated on  the  ground  that  it  would  "give  employment  to  a 
great  number  of  persons,  especially  females  who  now  eat 
the  bread  of  idleness."1 

On  the  old  farm,  however,  work  and  leisure  were  shared 
by  all  members  of  the  household  and  all  were  supported 
by  the  work  of  the  busy  months.  The  differentiation  of 
lumbering,  dairying,  slaughtering,  tool  making,  canning, 
spinning,  weaving,  dressmaking,  etc.,  from  farming  has 
destroyed  the  former  co-ordination  of  those  occupations. 
Nowadays,  whenever  work  in  any  of  them  grows  scarce, 
some  of  the  workers  are  cut  off  from  the  pay-roll  and  become 
"unemployed." 

The  most  generally  recognized  cause  of  unemployment  is 
seasonal  variation  of  business  activity.  According  to  the 
census  of  1900,  among  masons  and  plasterers  more  than 
one  half  were  out  of  work  a  portion  of  the  year.  Next 
follow  brick-  and  tile-makers,  of  whom  nearly  one  half 
were  at  times  unemployed.  Among  paper-hangers,  the  pro- 
portion was  44  per  cent;  among  carpenters  and  painters, 
over  40  per  cent;  among  fishermen,  about  one  half;  among 
sailors,  one  third.  All  these  occupations  are  dependent 
upon  the  weather.  Other  trades  are  dependent  upon  and 
decline  with  these.  Then  there  are  trades  dependent 
partly  upon  the  weather  and  partly  upon  social  customs; 
more  than  one  fourth  (27  per  cent)  of  all  tailors  were  out 
of  work  at  some  period  during  the  year  1900. 2  In  the 
busiest  season  the  supply  of  labor  in  such  trades  may  often- 
times be  short  of  the  demand,  necessitating  overtime  work; 

1  Helen  L.  Sumner:  "History  of  Women  in  Industry  in  the  United 
States,"  Report  on  Condition  of  Woman  and  Child  Wage-Earners  in 
United  States,  vol.  ix.,  p.  43.  See  also  pp.  38,  39.  In  the  early  years  of 
the  nineteenth  century  the  mills  employed  many  farm  girls  who 
were  "not  constantly  at  work,  but  as  they  had  leisure  from  other  house- 
hold employment." — Ibid.,  p. 47.  See  also  Simons:  Social  Forces  in 
American  History,  p.  172  et  seq. 

*  Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  Tables  LXXXVIL,  and  XC. 


n6  Immigration  and  Labor 

yet  even  this  shortage  of  labor  will  not  save  a  portion  of  the 
force  engaged  in  such  trades  from  idleness  at  other  times 
of  the  year.  A  reduction  of  the  number  of  competitors  for 
positions  in  such  trades  would  obviously  not  relieve  the 
situation.  Masonry  may  serve  as  an  example.  Out  of 
every  1000  masons  555  were  unemployed  some  time  during 
the  census  year  1900  and  there  was  steady  work  all  year 
around  for  only  445. x  Could  the  number  of  masons  in  the 
United  States  have  been  reduced  to  the  445  who  had  steady 
work  in  1900,  unemployment  would  thereby  not  have  been 
eliminated.  On  the  contrary,  many  of  the  445  who  were 
employed  all  year  around  when  there  were  555  more  masons 
in  busy  times  would  have  lost  part  of  their  working  time 
with  the  exclusion  of  their  competitors.  The  explanation 
of  this  apparent  paradox  is  that  there  is  steady  work  on  a 
building  for  about  one  half  of  the  total  number  employed 
at  the  busiest  time — probably  inside  work  which  does  not 
depend  upon  the  weather.  But  a  building  cannot  be  con- 
structed all  inside.  If  the  number  of  masons  were  reduced 
from  looo  to  500,  the  building  operations  at  the  busiest 
season  would  necessarily  have  to  be  reduced  one  half,  with 
the  result  that  during  the  slack  season  there  would  be  only 
enough  inside  work  for  250  and  the  other  195  of  the  445 
who  had  steady  work  in  1900  would  now  go  idle.  The 
same  condition  exists  to  a  greater  or  lesser  degree  in  many 
other  industries. 

In  order  to  eliminate  unemployment  it  would  be  necessary 
to  dovetail  the  busy  and  the  slack  seasons  in  the  various 
industries  upon  such  a  plan  as  would  produce  an  even  dis- 
tribution of  the  work  of  the  nation  over  all  seasons  of  the 
year.  This  might  be  possible  if  all  mines,  mills,  and  trans- 
portation lines  were  operated  by  one  nation-wide  combine, 
ouch  an  adjustment  of  half  a  million  independent  business 
establishments,  however,  is  not  feasible  for  more  than  one 
ceason.  In  the  first  place,  the  periods  of  the  highest  and 
lowest  demand  for  labor  are  largly  contemporaneous,  in 

1  Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  p.  ccxxxii.,  Table  CX. 


Unemployment  117 

all  industries  (see  Diagram  V).1  The  highest  number 
employed  in  manufactures,  in  the  United  States  as  a  whole 
as  well  as  in  every  one  of  the  principal  States,  is  found  in  the 
spring  and  in  the  fall,  the  lowest  in  winter.  The  workman 
who  is  laid  off  in  January  has,  as  a  rule,  no  opportunity 
to  secure  other  work. 

In  the  second  place,  even  when  the  slack  period  in  one 
industry  coincides  with  the  busiest  period  in  another,  the 
mobility  of  labor  is  quite  limited.  The  skilled  trades  admit 
of  no  shifting  from  one  occupation  to  another.  May  was 
the  busiest  month  of  the  year  1899  (see  Diagram  V). 
In  51  industries  an  additional  force  of  400,000  men  was 
at  work  in  excess  of  the  permanent  force  employed  at  all 
times  of  the  year,  including  the  slack  season.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  were  four  industries  for  which  May  was  the 
dullest  month,  but  the  aggregate  number  laid  off  in  those 
industries  was  less  than  7000.  And  yet  with  all  that 
demand  for  labor  some  of  them  must  have  remained  out  of 
work.  There  were,  e.g.,  1924  idle  jewelry  workers.  Help 
was  wanted  in  brick  yards,  74,000  men;  carpenter  shops, 
71,000;  custom  tailoring  shops,  16,000;  carriage  and  wagon 
shops,  14,000;  planing  mills,  13,000;  cigar  factories,  6000.' 
cheese  factories,  5000,  etc.  There  was  not  a  single  industry, 
however,  among  the  51,  which  could  furnish  employment 
to  the  1924  idle  jewelry  workers.2  Had  every  one  of  the 
extra  400,000  men  been  deported  to  Europe,  the  1924  idle 
jewelers  would  nevertheless  have  remained  unemployed. 
Even  if  all  the  laborers  in  the  brickyards  were  of  un- 
adulterated Puritan  stock,  a  jewelry  worker  would  consider 
it  beneath  his  social  status  to  do  rough  work  in  a  brickyard 
while  waiting  for  the  resumption  of  work  at  Tiffany's. 
The  natural  tendency  is  for  the  fact  of  seasonal  fluctuation 
to  be  recognized  as  a  normal  incident  of  the  industry  and 
to  be  allowed  for  in  the  standard  of  wages. 

The  only  class  of  labor  whicfc  is  capable  of  shifting  from 

1  Based  upon  figures  of  XII.  Census  Report  on  Manufactures,  vol.  i, 
Table  3,  p.  62.  *  See  Appendix,  Table  II. 


DIAGRAM  V. 
Scale  for  States:  i  unit  =  10,000.    For  the  United  States:  I  unit = 100,000. 


60 


60 


40 


40 


30 


10 


V.    Average  number  of  male  wage-earners  employed  in  manufactures 
in  the  United  States  and  the  principal  States,  by  months,  1899. 


118 


Unemployment  119 

one  industry  to  another  is  unskilled  labor.  Yet  the  localiza- 
tion of  industries  sets  also  a  limit  to  the  mobility  of  unskilled 
labor.  By  way  of  illustration  let  us  compare  the  iron  and 
steel  and  the  lumber  industry.  Both  employ  large  numbers 
of  unskilled  laborers.  The  variation  between  the  greatest 
and  the  least  number  of  men  employed  is  over  200,000  in  the 
latter  and  only  80,000  in  the  former.  Assuming  that  busy 
and  dull  times  dovetail  in  the  -two  industries,  we  shall 
nevertheless  find  interchange  of  unskilled  labor  between 
them  restricted  by  geographical  location.  Nearly  one  half 
of  the  iron  and  steel  workers  are  employed  in  Pennsylvania; 
there  were  38,000  of  them  unemployed  at  one  time  or 
another  in  1899,  whereas  the  highest  number  of  extra  men 
hired  during  the  same  year  in  the  lumber  industry  of  the 
same  State  was  about  9000 ;  more  than  three  fourths  of  the 
idle  iron  and  steel  workers  of  Pennsylvania  could  find  no 
employment  in  the  lumber  industry  within  their  own 
State.  The  same  was  true  of  Ohio,  where  there  were  at 
one  time  or  another  13,000  unemployed  iron  and  steel 
workers,  while  only  6300  temporary  men  found  employ- 
ment in  the  lumber  industry  within  the  same  State.  Men 
were  wanted  in  the  lumber  camps  of  Michigan,  Wisconsin, 
and  Minnesota,1  but  the  laborer  who  is  employed  on  and 
off  in  a  steel  mill  around  Pittsburgh  will  not  take  the  risk 
in  the  intervals  to  hunt  for  a  temporary  job  in  the  lumber 
camps  of  Minnesota. 

The  local  and  seasonal  divergencies  between  the  supply 
of  and  the  demand  for  labor  have  called  into  existence  the 
labor  agent  or  the  "padrone,"  whose  business  is  that  of  a 
broker  in  the  labor  market.  To  declaim  against  him  is  as 
futile  as  to  condemn  the  broker  in  the  Produce  Exchange. 
The  casual  or  " discontinuous"  laborer  in  New  York^City 
has  no  means  to  learn  that  men  are  wanted  by  a  railway 
company  in  the  West  or  South.  The  labor  agent,  who  is  in 
communication  with  railway  companies,  building  contrac- 
tors, and  other  great  employers  of  labor,  renders  a  service 

*XII.  Census,  Manufactures,  Part  I,  Table  4,  PP-  254-255. 286-291. 


120  Immigration  and  Labor 

both  to  the  employer  and  to  the  laborer.  Being  in  business 
for  profit,  he  charges  a  commission  for  his  services.  That  a 
broker  of  this  class  is  apt  to  take  advantage  of  his  client 
does  not  mark  him  as  an  exception  to  the  general  run  of 
mankind  in  kindred  occupations.  It  is  a  common  error  to 
think  that  the  labor  agent  is  the  specific  product  of  Italian 
or  Greek  immigration.  We  learn  from  the  recent  report 
of  Dr.  Helen  L.  Sumner  on  the  History  of  Women  in  Industry 
in  the  United  States  that  during  the  early  years  of  the  factory 
system,  before  the  era  of  immigration,  the  New  England 
factories  "put  forth  systematic  efforts  to  attract  the  farm- 
ers' daughters  of  the  surrounding  country."  A  common 

method  of  securing  girls  for  the  factories  was  to  send  out  agents  to  the 
country  districts  who  were  paid  a  stipulated  sum  per  head  for  hiring 
girls.  As  early  as  1831  the  Dedham  (Mass.)  Patriot  announced  that 
"  a  valuable  cargo,  consisting  of  50  females,  was  recently  imported  into 
this  State  from  '  Down  East*  by  one  of  the  Boston  packets.  .  .  ."  The 
Cabotville  Chronicle  spoke  in  1864  of  a  "  long,  low,  black,  wagon"  which 
makes  regular  trips  to  the  North  of  the  State,  cruising  around  in  Ver- 
mont and  New  Hampshire  with  a  "commander"  whose  heart  must  be 
as  black  as  his  craft,  who  is  paid  a  dollar  a  head  for  all  he  brings  to  the 
market,  and  more  in  proportion  to  the  distance,  if  they  bring  them 
from  such  a  distance  that  they  cannot  easily  get  back.  This  is  done 
by  "hoisting  false  colors,"  and  representing  to  the  girls  that  they  can 
tend  more  machinery  than  is  possible  and  that  the  work  is  so  very 
neat,  and  the  wages  such  that  they  can  dress  in  silks  and  spend  half 
their  time  in  reading. l 

The  abuses  of  unscrupulous  labor  agents  must  not  blind 
us,  however,  to  the  fact  that  they  perform  a  necessary 
social  function,  viz.,  that  of  distributing  the  labor  supply 
where  it  is  wanted.  The  main  shortcoming  of  this  system 
of  distribution  of  labor  is  its  inadequacy.  The  total  number 
of  laborers  shipped  by  all  employment  agencies  out  of  New 
York  City  to  twenty-six  States  in  more  than  two  years 
(May  i,  1904,  to  July  31,  1906)  was x>nly  40,737, a  i.e.,  about 

1  Report  on  Condition  of  Woman  and   Child    Wage-Earners  in  the 
United  States,  vol.  ix.,  pp.  80-81 
a  Frank  J.  Sheridan:     "Italian,  Slavic,  and  Hungarian  Unskilled  Im- 


Unemployment  121 

17,000  a  year.  The  total  number  of  laborers  who  were 
unemployed  at  any  time  during  the  census  year  1900  (the 
latest  for  which  data  are  available)  was  40,108'  and  the 
rate  of  unemployment  in  1904-1906,  as  far  as  can  be  judged, 
was  about  the  same  as  in  1900.*  It  is  safe  to  say  that  the 
labor  agencies  were  able  to  place  outside  of  New  York 
City  less  than  one  half  of  all  unemployed  laborers.  The 
majority  stayed  in  New  York  waiting  for  work  "to  pick  up." 

We  come  next  to  the  cyclical  fluctuations  of  business 
which  result  in  variations  of  the  number  employed  from 
year  to  year.  A  temporary  decline  in  business  means 
unemployment  for  a  number  of  wage-earners  who  were 
employed  the  year  before.  Such  fluctuations  of  business 
occur  in  countries  with  a  net  emigration,  like  Great  Britain, 
or  in  France  whose  population  is  practically  stationary,  as 
well  as  in  the  United  States.  The  effect  of  these  fluctua- 
tions of  business  activity  "is  the  requirement  in  each  trade 
of  reserves  of  labor  to  meet  the  fluctuations  of  work  inci- 
dental to  years  of  prosperity."3  An  illustration  of  the 
range  of  these  cyclical  fluctuations  is  given  in  Diagram 
VI.  on  p.  1 25.* 

The  most  important  cause  of  unemployment  in  point  of 
numbers  affected,  however,  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
"the  actual  demand  is  that  of  each  of  many  separate 
employers  in  many  different  places."5  The  effect  of  this 
"dissipation  of  the  demand  for  labor  in  each  trade"6  upon 

migrant  Laborers  in  United  States,"  Bulletin  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor, 
No.  72,  p.  417. 

1  Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  Table  XLIII.,  p.  634. 

a  According  to  the  statistics  of  the  New  York  Bureau  of  Labor,  the 
ratio  of  unemployed  in  1900  was  21.0  per  cent;  in  1904,  30.5  per  cent; 
in  1905,  14.6  per  cent  and  in  1906,  8.6  per  cent,  averaging  for  1904- 
1906,  17.9  per  cent.  (Report  of  the  New  York  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics, 
1908,  p.  xviii.,  Table  10.)  While  these  figures  relate  to  members  of  labor 
unions  only,  they  may  serve  as  a  standard  of  comparison  of  general 
business  conditions  in  various  years.  *  Beveridge,  loc.  cit.,  p.  13- 

« Based  on  Report  of  the  New  York  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  1910, 
p.  viii,  s  Beveridge,  loc.  cit.,  p.  10.  6 IM*.,  p.  13- 


122 


Immigration  and  Labor 


the  mass  of  wage-earners  can  be  measured  by  the  difference 
between  the  aggregate  number  of  hands  required  by  all 
establishments  at  their  busiest  seasons  and  the  aggregate 
minimum  number  employed  when  business  is  at  its  lowest 
ebb.  To  be  sure,  this  difference  does  not  represent  the 
amount  of  unemployment  at  any  given  date,  since  the 
seasonal  variations  are  not  simultaneous  in  all  industries 
and  a  considerable  portion  of  the  unskilled  laborers  readily 
shift  from  one  industry  to  another.  But  every  change  of 
position  involves  some  period  of  unemployment,  as  it  re- 
quires some  time  to  find  a  new  job.  This  is  clearly  demon- 
strated by  the  census  statistics  of  manufactures.  The 
difference  between  the  greatest  and  the  least  average 
number  employed  during  any  month  in  the  year  is  far  short 
of  the  difference  between  the  aggregate  greatest  and  the 
aggregate  least  number  employed  in  all  establishments 
during  the  same  year,  as  shown  in  Table  16  next  below: 

TABLE  16. 

RANGE  OF  FLUCTUATIONS  OF  EMPLOYMENT,  1899  AND  1904' 


185 

9 

19 

34 

Number    employed 
(thousands) 

Simultane- 
ously, monthly 
average 

Aggregate  in  all 
establishments 
at  any  time 
during  the  year 

Simultane- 
ously, monthly 
average 

Aggregate  in  all 
establishments 
at  any  time 
during  the  year 

«67 

7O6Q 

5677 

7OI7 

Minimum     .  . 

4.Q-J8 

4.527 

5262 

4.CQQ 

Difference  

629 

2545 

415 

2418 

Percentage  to 

minimum.  . 

H 

56 

9 

53 

1  Compiled  from  XII.  Census  Report  on  Manufactures,  Part  I,  p.  59, 
Table  3;  Genius  Report  on  Manufactures,  1905,  Part  I,  p.  Ixxix.,  Table 
XXVII. 


Unemployment  123 

In  order  to  ascertain  the  total  number  of  wage-earners 
who  had  steady  employment  during  the  year,  the  number 
employed  by  each  individual  manufacturer  on  the  slackest 
day  in  his  own  business  must  be  added  to  similar  numbers 
for  all  others,  though  the  days  may  not  have  coincided.  It 
appears  that  this  number  was  less  than  the  lowest  monthly 
average,  which  means  that  even  in  the  worst  month  of  the 
year  more  people  are  wanted  on  .an  average  than  can  be 
given  permanent  employment.  On  the  other  hand,  while 
during  the  best  month  of  the  year  1899  only  fourteen  ad- 
ditional wage-earners  were  needed  over  and  above  every 
one  hundred  who  had  permanent  employment,  actually 
four  times  as  many  persons  were  hired  for  temporary  jobs 
during  the  same  year.  In  1904,  the  proportion  was  still 
more  striking,  the  number  of  persons  hired  temporarily 
was  nearly  six  times  greater  than  the  actual  temporary 
force  needed  at  the  busiest  time  during  the  year.  In  either 
year  there  were  over  one  half  as  many  temporary  jobs  as 
permanent  "positions.  Of  course,  these  figures  comprise 
many  duplications ;  there  may  have  been  few  wage-earners 
over  the  greatest  number  that  could  actually  have  been 
employed  at  the  same  time;  in  that  case  each  of  the  tem- 
porary employees  had  about  four  different  jobs  during  the 
year  1899  and  six  during  the  year  1904.  The  unemploy- 
ment intervening  between  one  temporary  job  and  another 
clearly  did  not  depend  upon  the  number  of  applicants  for 
jobs,  but  was  determined  by  the  vicissitudes  of  business. 

The  whole  problem  of  unemployment  is  admirably  eluci- 
dated in  Mr.  Beveridge's  exhaustive  treatise  on  the  subject, 
from  which  the  following  is  condensed : 

A  general  and  normal  excess  of  the  supply  of  labor  over  the  demand 
appears  to  be  explicable  only  by  an  excessively  rapid  increase  of  popula- 
tion. But  sucb  an  explanatior  does  not  square  with  the  facts  showing 
irreducible  minimum  of  unemployment  precisely  in  those  industries 
which  have  grown  with  exceptional  rapidity  in  recent  years. 

The  general  formula  for  the  supply  of  labor  in  an  industry  appears  to 
be  this:  for  work  requiring,  if  concentrated  at  one  spot,  at  most  ninety- 


124  Immigration  and  Labor 

eight  men,  there  will  actually  be  eighty  in  regular  employment;  there 
will  be  a  hundred  in  all,  so  that  at  all  times  two  at  least  are  out  of  work. 
The  twenty,  however,  are  as  much  part  of  the  industrial  system  as  are 
the  eighty ;  the  reserve  is  as  indispensable  as  the  regulars.  The  idleness, 
now  of  some,  now  of  others,  of  the  reserve  is  mainly  responsible  for  the 
irreducible  minimum  of  unemployment.  The  figures  here  given  have 
only  an  illustrative  value;  the  proportion  of  regular  and  reserve  and 
irreducible  minimum  vary  from  trade  to  trade.  The  principle  is  of  the 
greatest  generality.  The  rule  for  each  trade  is  to  have  more  men  than 
are  called  for  together  even  at  the  busiest  moment. 

The  normal  state  of  every  industry  is  to  be  overcrowded  with  labor, 
in  the  sense  of  having  drawn  into  it  more  men  than  can  ever  find  em- 
ployment in  it  at  any  one  time.  This  is  the  direct  consequence  of  the 
work  of  each  industry  being  distributed  between  many  separate  em- 
ployees each  subject  to  fluctuations  of  fortune.  //  depends  upon  the 
nature  of  the  demand  for  labor,  not  upon  the  volume  of  the  whole  supply. 

To  speak  of  the  reserve  of  labor  in  a  trade  may  become,  in  fact,  only 
another  way  of  speaking  of  the  whole  volume  of  unemployment  in  it. 
The  change,  however,  is  not  one  of  words  alone.  It  implies  a  revolu- 
tion of  mental  attitude.  It  involves  perception  of  unemployment,  not 
as  a  thing  standing  by  itself — an  inexplicable  excrescence  on  the  indus- 
trial system — but  as  a  thing  directly  related  to  that  system  and  as 
necessary  to  it  as  are  capital  and  labor  themselves. 

Unemployment  is  not  to  bz  identified  as  a  problem  of  general  over-popula- 
tion. Unemployment  arises  because,  while  the  supply  of  labor  grows 
steadily,  the  demand  for  labor,  in  growing,  varies  incessantly  in  volume, 
distribution,  and  character.  This  variation  in  several  of  its  forms  at 
least  flows  directly  from  the  control  of  production  by  many  competing 
employers.  It  is  obvious  that,  so  long  as  the  industrial  world  is  split  up 
into  separate  groups  of  producers — each  group  with  a  life  of  its  own,  and 
growing  or  decaying  in  ceaseless  attrition  upon  its  neighbors — there 
must  be  insecurity  of  employment.  Unemployment,  in  other  words, 
is  to  some  extent  at  least  part  of  the  price  of  industrial  competition — 
part  of  the  waste  without  which  there  could  be  no  competition  at  all. « 

B.     Unemployment  and  Immigration 

It  has  been  shown  that  unemployment  does  not  depend 
upon  the  volume  of  the  supply  of  labor,  but  is  determined 
by  the  nature  of  the  demand  for  labor,  which  produces  a 
"relative  surplus-population."  Is  itrnot  possible,  however 

1  Beveridge,  loc.  cit.t  pp.  70,  76,  99,  100,  103,  235. — "A  surplus  labor- 
ing population  is  ...  a  condition  of  existence  of  the  capitalist  mode  of 


DIAGRAM  VI. 


Per  cent,  of  employed  and  unemployed  members  of  trade  unions  in  the 
State  of  New  York,  by  months,  1902-1909. 

production.  .  .  .  With  accumulation,  and  the  development  of  produc- 
tiveness of  labor  that  accompanies  it,  the  power  of  sudden  expansion 
of  capital  grows  also.  .  .  .  There  must  be  the  possibility  of  throwing 
great  masses  of  men  suddenly  on  the  decisive  points  without  injury  to 
the  scale  of  production  in  other  spheres.  .  .  .  The  whole  form  of  the 
movement  of  modern  industry  depends,  therefore,  upon  the  constant 
transformation  of  a  part  of  the  laboring  population  into  unemployed  or 
half-employed  hands.  .  .  .  Taking  them  as  a  whole,  the  general  move- 
ments of  wages  are  exclusively  regulated  by  the  expansion  and  con- 
traction of  the  industrial  reserve  army.  .  .  .  They  are,  therefore,  not 
determined  by  the  variations  of  the  absolute  number  of  the  working 
population,  but  by  the  varying  proportions  in  which  the  working  class 
is  divided  into  active  and  reserve  army,  by  the  increase  or  diminutirti 
in  the  relative  amount  of  the  surplus  population." — Karl  Marx,  Capital, 
part  i.,  ch.  xxv.,  sec.  3. 


126  Immigration  and  Labor 

that  the  effects  of '  'the  normal  glutting  of  the  labor  market" x 
may  be  aggravated  by  immigration? 

It  is  asserted,  indeed,  on  the  strength  of  the  investigation 
of  the  Immigration  Commission  "that  the  point  of  complete 
saturation  has  already  been  reached  in  the  employment 
of  recent  immigrants  in  mining  and  manufacturing  estab- 
lishments."2 The  Commission  holds  "that  even  with  the 
remarkable  expansion  of  industry  during  the  past  few  years 
there  has  been  created  an  oversupply  of  unskilled  labor, 
which  "is  reflected  in  a  curtailed  number  of  working 
days."3 

It  is  further  argued  that  the  oversupply  of  unskilled  labor 
indirectly  affects  the  skilled  trades;  more  workers  who 
might  otherwise  find  employment  as  unskilled  laborers  are 
pushed  up  the  scale  to  compete  for  skilled  positions.  This 
is  especially  felt  in  slack  seasons  when  skilled  mechanics 
would  welcome  any  kind  of  work,  even  unskilled,  which 
would  tide  them  over  the  hard  times.  But  the  oversupply 
of  unskilled  labor  restricts  their  opportunities  in  this  field 
and  intensifies  competition  in  the  skilled  trades.  When  two 
competitors  apply  for  one  job  in  an  overstocked  labor 
market,  the  cheaper  man  will  outbid  the  other.  It  is 
accordingly  inevitable  that  the  immigrant  with  a  lower 
standard  of  living  must  displace  the  American  workman. 

If  this  theory  is  correct,  we  must  find  a  higher  percentage 
of  unemployment  among  the  native  than  among  the  foreign- 
born  breadwinners.  In  fact,  however,  we  find  the  following 
percentages  of  unemployment  ascertained  by  the  census  for 

>  x  Beveridge,  loc.  cit.,  p.  13. 

*  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.,  p.  197. 

3  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I ,  p.  39.  The  Com- 
mission does  not  consistently  adhere  to  this  view.  Elsewhere,  in  dis- 
cussing the  causes  of  the  outward  movement  of  immigrants  leaving  the 
United  States  permanently,  the  Commission  says:  ''That  it  is  not  due 
to  lack  of  opportunity  for  employment,  except  in  a  period  of  depression, 
is  evident  from  the  fact  that  there  is  a  steady  influx  of  European  laborers 
who  have  little  or  no  difficulty  in  finding  employment  here." — Ibid., 
vol.  4  (in  press). 


Unemployment  127 

1 900:  native  white  males,  21.2  per  cent;  foreign  white  males 
21.0  per  cent.1 

^The  difference  between  the  two  classes  is  negligible. 
The  figures  do  not  sustain  the  theory  that  the  immigrants 
have  an  advantage  over  the  native  American  workmen  in 
the  matter  of  securing  employment.  Has  the  "cheap" 
immigrant  a  better  chance  to  hold  his  job,  once  secured, 
than  the  native  American  workman?  An  answer  to  this 
question  is  found  in  the  following  table  reproduced  from  the 
Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  8,  p.  87. 

TABLE  17. 

PER  CENT,  DISTRIBUTION  OF  NATIVE  AND  FOREIGN-BORN  MALE  IRON  AND 
STEEL  WORKERS  1 6  YEARS  OF  AGE  AND  OVER  BY  NUMBER 
OF  MONTHS  OF  EMPLOYMENT 


Number  of  months 
employed 

Native  born 

Foreign 
born 

Of  native  father 

Of  foreign  father 

9  and  over 

6O.2 
234 
13-5 
2.9 

50.2 
28.3 
I7.I 

4.4 

41.4 

32.3 
2O.  I 
6.2 

6  and  under  9  .  . 

£and  under  6  

ess  than  3 

Total  

IOO.O 

IOO.O 

IOO.O 

1  Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  p.  ccxxvi.  The  census  averages  for 
unemployment  among  female  breadwinners  are  not  reliable.  The 
highest  ratios  of  unemployment  were  found  among  school  teachers,  61.2 
per  cent,  and  in  agricultural  pursuits,  44.3  per  cent,  (p.  ccxxxi),  where- 
as the  ratio  for  manufactures  was  22.4  per  cent,  for  domestic  and  per- 
sonal service,  17.1  per  cent,  and  for  trade  and  transportation,  n.i  per 
cent  (p.  ccxxviii).  The  teachers'  vacation  was  included  by  the  compilers 
of  the  census  data  under  unemployment.  Similarly,  we  find  that  in 
most  of  the  census  talles  on  occupations  female  members  of  farmers' 
families  who  were  helping  on  the  farm  were  lumped  together  with 
hired  help  under  the  common  designation  of  "agricultural  laborers." 
These  "farm  laborers  (members  of  family) "  numbered  two  thirds  of  all 
"agricultural  laborers"  (ibid.,  p.  7).  The  part  of  the  year  when  there 
was  no  work  for  them  on  the  farm  was  also  counted  as  "unemployment." 


128 


Immigration  and  Labor 


The  statistics  of  the  Immigration  Commission  do  not 
show  that  the  immigrant  holds  his  position  longer  than  the 
American-born  workman.  On  the  contrary,  in  the  iron 
and  steel  industry,  which  is  among  those  most  affected  by 
immigration,  the  native  workman  is  given  more  steady 
employment  than  the  immigrant. 

If  there  exists  a  causal  connection  between  immigration 
and  unemployment,  we  must  expect  to  find  more  unemploy- 
ment in  those  sections  of  the  United  States  where  the 
immigrants  are  mostly  concentrated.  This  assumption  is 
disproved  by  Table  18  next  following: 

TABLE  1 8. 

COMPARATIVE   PERCENTAGES    OF    UNEMPLOYED    AND    OF    FOREIGN-BORN 
BREADWINNERS  BY  GEOGRAPHICAL  DIVISIONS, 


^Geographical  divisions 

Ratio  of  for- 
eign       white 
to  total  num- 
ber of  bread- 
winners 

Ratio  of  breadwinners  unemployed  dur- 
ing a  portion  of  the  year  to  total  number 
in  each  class  and  division 

Manufacturing  and 
mechanical  pursuits 

Domestic  and 
personal  service 
(including     la- 
borers) 

Continental  United 
States  

19-7 
2.9 

37 
23.5 
277 
31-5 

27.2 
25.2 
28.6 

29-5 

28.1 

25-7 

28.1 
28.1 
31.0 
30.7 
28.6 

24-3 

South  Atlantic.  .  .  . 

South  Central  

North  Central  

Western  

North  Atlantic  .  .  . 

As  a  result  of  this  method  of  classification,  the  number  of  "unemployed  " 
female  agricultural  laborers  (293,707)  exceeded  y  nearly  one  third  the 
total  number  of  hired  female  farm  help  (222,597).  These  two  classes 
of  occupations  furnished  two  fifths  of  all  unemployed  females  (494,202 
out  of  a  total  of  1,241,492),  while  the  ratio  of  foreign-born  was  only 
5.3  per  cent  for  teachers  and  0.8  per  cent  for  agricultural  laborers 
(ibid.,  pp.  10-11,  Table  2).  In  consequence  the  average  percentage  of 
"  unemployment "  for  native  white  women  in  all  occupations  appears  to 
be  higher  than  for  foreign -born.  It  is  evident  that  the  census  data  on 
unemploy  ent  among  women  are  misleading,  which  is  conceded  in  the 
census  report. 

1  Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  Table  XCIIL,  pp.  Ixxxi.,  ccxxxv., 
and  ccxxxvi.,  Tables  XVII.  and  XCIII. 


Unemployment  129 

A  glance  at  the  table  shows  that  the  percentage  of  un- 
employment is  not  affected  by  the  percentage  of  foreign- 
born  engaged  in  the  main  classes  of  occupations.  The 
variation  of  the  ratio  of  unemployment  from  section  to 
section  is  confined  within  narrow  limits.  The  ratio  of  un- 
employment in  manufactures  is  the  same  for  the  South 
Atlantic  and  the  North  Atlantic  States,  though  there  are 
very  few  foreign-born  in  the  South  Atlantic  States,  while 
in  the  North  Atlantic  States  they  constitute  nearly  one 
third  of  all  operatives.  In  all  other  sections  of  the  country 
the  ratio  of  unemployment  is  slightly  higher  than  in  the 
North  Atlantic  States,  while  the  percentage  of  foreign-born 
breadwinners  engaged  in  manufactures  is  less,  and  in  the 
South  Central  States  much  less  than  in  the  North  Atlan- 
tic States.  The  same  is  true  of  the  miscellaneous  collection 
of  occupations  lumped  together  in  census  statistics  under 
the  head  of  "domestic  and  personal  service,"  which  in- 
cludes unskilled  laborers.  We  find  the  lowest  ratio  of  un- 
employment in  the  North  Atlantic  States,  with  31.5  per 
cent  of  foreign-born  breadwinners  and  the  highest  in  the 
South  Central  States,  with  but  3.7  per  cent  of  foreign-born 
breadwinners. 

Comparative  statistics  showing  the  ratio  of  unemploy- 
ment and  the  percentage  of  foreign-born  breadwinners  by 
sex  and  by  States  are  available  for  the  manufacturing 
industries  at  the  XII.  Census.  The  measure  of  unemploy- 
ment, for  the  purposes  of  this  comparison,  is  the  difference 
between  the  total  greatest  and  the  total  least  monthly 
average  number  employed,  expressed  as  a  percentage  of 
the  greatest  monthly  average.  The  data  for  manufactures 
relate  to  the  calendar  year  1899  and  the  distribution  of 
breadwinners  by  nativity  is  for  the  summer  of  1900.  The 
dates  are  sufficiently  close  to  make  the  figures  comparable.1 

There  is  considerable  variation  of  the  ratio  of  unemploy- 
ment, as  well  as  of  that  of  foreign-born,  by  States.  There 
are  some  States  with  a  high  percentage  of  foreign-born  and 

1  See  Appendix,  Table  III. 


130 


Immigration  and  Labor 


low  ratio  of  unemployment  and  vice  versa;  there  are  others 
with  high  percentages  both  of  foreign-born  and  of  un- 
employment and  vice  versa.  The  ratio  of  unemployment 
seems  sometimes  to  rise  and  sometimes  to  fall  with  the 
percentages  of  foreign-born.  But  a  significant  correla- 
tion between  the  two  ratios  is  disclosed  if  all  States 
are  combined  into  two  areas  according  to  the  ratio  of 
foreign-born  engaged  in  manufactures  and  mechanical 
pursuits : 

I.  Those   States   where  the   ratio  of  foreign-born   in 
manufactures  is  below  the  average  for  the  United  States; 

II.  Those  States  where  that  ratio  is  above  the  average 
for  the  United  States. 

The  statistics  relating  to  each  area  are  summarized 
separately  for  male  and  female  wage-earners  in  Tables  19 
and  20. 

TABLE  19. ' 

GREATEST  AND  LEAST  NUMBER  OF  MALE  WAGE-EARNERS  EMPLOYED  IN 
MANUFACTURES  DURING  ANY  ONE  MONTH  OF  THE  YEAR  1899, 
GREATEST  NUMBER  OF  UNEMPLOYED,  AND  PERCENTAGE  OF  FOREIGN- 
BORN  MALES  ENGAGED  IN  MANUFACTURES  AND  MECHANICAL 
PURSUITS  IN  1900,  BY  GROUPS  OF  STATES. 


States  with  percentage 
of    foreign-born      in 
manufactures       and 
mechanical  pursuits 

Employed  in 
manufactures 
(thousands) 

Unemployed 
sometime 

Per  cent  ratio  of  foreign- 
born   to   all    males  in 
manufactures  and  me- 
chanical pursuits. 

Least 
number 

Great- 
est 
number 

Thou- 
sands 

Percent  of 
greatest 
number 
employed 

Least 

Greatest 

Below  the  average.  . 
Above  the  average.  . 

1224 
2524 

1501 
2907 

277 

383 

18.5 
13-2 

I.O 

33-2 

31-9 
53-8 

Total  

3748 

4408 

660 

^5-o 

Average 
32.7 

Unemployment 

TABLE  20. 


GREATEST  AND  LEAST  NUMBER  OF  FEMALE  WAGE-EARNERS  EMPLOYED  IN 
MANUFACTURES  DURING  ANY  ONE  MONTH  OF  THE  YEAR  1899,  GREAT- 
EST NUMBER  OF  UNEMPLOYED,  AND  PERCENTAGE  OF  FOREIGN-BORN 
FEMALES  ENGAGED  IN  MANUFACTURES  AND  MECHANICAL  PURSUITS, 
IN  IQOO,  BY  GROUPS  OF  STATES. 


Employed  in 
manufactures 

Unemployed 

Per  cent  ratio  of  foreign- 
born  to  all  females  in 

States  with  percentage 
of     foreign-born     in 

(thousands) 

sometime 

manufactures  and  me- 
chanical pursuits 

manufactures       and 

mechanical  pursuits 

Least 
number 

Great- 
est 
number 

Thou- 
sands 

Per  cent  of 
greatest 
number 

Least 

Greatest 

employed 

Below  the  average.  . 

352 

442 

90 

20.4 

0.2 

20.3 

Above  the  average.  . 

573 

668 

95 

14.2 

22.7 

46.2 

Average 

Total 

925 

IIIO 

185 

I6.4 

21.4 

Combining  all  the  States  where  the  immigrants  furnish 
from  one  third  to  more  than  one  half  of  all  males  engaged  in 
manufactures  and  mechanical  pursuits,  we  find  that  the 
ratio  of  unemployment  in  that  area  as  a  whole  is  lower  than 
in  the  other  area,  where  the  immigrants  are  few  in  numbers, 
rising  in  no  State  to  one  third  of  all  males  employed  in 
manufacturing  industries  and  falling  as  low  as  i  per  cent. 
The  same  rule  holds  true  with  regard  to  female  wage-earners 
employed  in  manufactures.  On  the  whole,  unemployment  is 
in  inverse  ratio  to  the  relative  number  of  foreign-born. 

The  underlying  cause  of  this  relation  will  be  apparent, 
if  we  remember  that  the  number  of  foreign-born  wage- 
earners  is  regulated  by  immigration  and  emigration  and 
that  both  movements  promptly  respond  to  changes  in  the 
business  situation.  (See  Chapter  IV.) 

Still  the  variation  of  the  ratio  of  unemployment  by  States 
may  be  affected  by  the  localization  of  industries;  certain 
industries  concentrated  in  a  State  with  a  small  foreign-born 
population  may  through  climatic  or  other  causes  be  more 
subject  to  ebb  and  flow  than  other  industries  located  in  a 


132  Immigration  and  Labor 

State  with  a  large  immigrant  population.  The  ratio  of 
unemployment  must  therefore  be  compared  for  different 
occupations  with  a  varying  percentage  of  foreign-born 
breadwinners. 

Diagram  VII  furnishes  the  data  for  a  comparative  study 
of  fifty  leading  occupations  which  gave  employment,  in 
1900,  to  seven  and  a  half  million  male  breadwinners.1 

If  it  be  true  that  unemployment  is  intensified  by  immi- 
gration, the  aggregations  of  solid  black  bars  representing 
unemployment  and  striped  bars  representing  the  percentage 
of  foreign-born  male  breadwinners  in  each  occupation 
should  be  expected  to  display  some  similarity  in  outline. 
No  such  tendency  is  suggested  by  the  diagram ;  the  variation 
of  the  ratio  of  unemployment  for  different  occupations 
shows  no  effects  of  immigration. 

Although  the  number  of  occupations  selected  for  compari- 
son, as  well  as  the  number  of  persons  engaged  in  them,  is 
very  large  and  well  distributed  over  all  sections  of  the 
country,  yet,  in  order  to  eliminate  the  possible  effect  of 
localization  of  industries,  we  shall  next  compare  the  varia- 
tions of  the  ratios  of  unemployment  and  of  the  percentage  of 
foreign-born  within  the  same  occupations  by  States.  Space 
forbids  an  exhaustive  treatment  of  all  the  leading  occupa- 
tions shown  in  Diagram  VII.  Our  study  will  be  confined  to 
three  occupation  groups:  bituminous  coal-miners,  common 
laborers,  and  cotton-mill  operatives.  The  first  two  have 
been  selected  in  view  of  the  popular  belief,  accepted  by  the 
Immigration  Commission,  that  they  are  suffering  from  an 
oversupply  of  unskilled  immigrant  labor.  The  cotton-mill 
operatives,  on  the  other  hand,  afford  the  opportunity  to 
contrast  the  New  England  mills,  where  the  majority  of  the 
workers  are  of  foreign  birth,  with  the  Southern  mills 
dependent  almost  exclusively  upon  native  labor. 

Diagram  VIII  presents  in  graphic  form  the  ratio  of  un- 

1  The  comparative  figures  for  these  occupations,  as  well  as  for  the 
leading  occupations  of  female  breadwinners  are  given  in  the  Appendix, 
Table  IV. 


DIAGRAM  VII 


D"~  H 

J  EinfUTttO  AU.  re/W  BY.  FoRiton  WHrtt 

VII.     Per  cent  unemployed  at  any  time  during  the  year  and  per 
cent  of  foreign-bora  in  fifty  leading  occupations,  1900. 

T33 


134 


Immigration  and  Labor 


employment  in  bituminous  coal-mining  collated  with  the 

percentage  of  foreign-born  miners.     The  former  ratio  has 

DIAGRAM  VIII 


Percentage  Foreign -bom 
Ratio  of  Unemployment 
VH1.    Ratio  of  unemployment  in  bituminous 
coal  mines,  1902,  and  percentage  of 
foreign-born  miners,  1900. 

been  computed  by  the  method  applied  above  to  manu- 
factures. The  greatest  and  the  least  number  of  wage- 
earners  are  taken  from  the  census  report  on  Mines  and 


Unemployment  135 

Quarries  for  1902,  while  the  percentage  of  foreign-born  is 
that  for  1900,  but  the  dates  are  sufficiently  near  for  compara- 
tive purposes.1  As  the  statistics  of  occupations  by  States 
do  not  distinguish  coal  miners  from  other  miners  and 
quarrymen,  the  comparison  is  confined  to  those  States  where 
coal  mining  was  practically  the  only  mining  industry.2 
The  diagram  includes,  however,  all  principal  coal-mining 
States  in  1902  which  produced  83  per  cent  of  the  total 
coal  output  of  the  United  States. 3  No  connection  between 
unemployment  and  immigration  is  disclosed  by  the  diagram. 
Pennsylvania,  which  holds  the  third  highest  place  according 
to  the  percentage  of  foreign-born  miners,  stands  next  to  the 
State  with  the  lowest  ratio  of  unemployment.  The  highest 
ratio  of  unemployment  is  found  in  West  Virginia,  where 
the  percentage  of  foreign-born  miners  is  next  to  the  lowest 

Similar  variations  by  States  appear  in  the  statistics 
relating  to  the  other  two  occupations  selected  for  compari- 
son. To  further  trace  the  interdependence,  if  any, 
between  immigration  and  unemployment  in  these  occupa- 
tions, we  shall  again  combine  all  States  into  two  areas, 
first,  according  to  the  percentage  of  foreign-born ;  and  next, 
in  the  same  manner,  according  to  the  ratio  of  unemploy- 
ment. The  results  of  these  combinations  are  summarized  in 
Tables  21  and  22. 4 

An  examination  of  Table  21  shows  that  the  percentage 
of  unemployment  is  slightly  less  in  the  area  where  the 
immigrants  furnish  44  per  cent  of  all  common  labor,  than 
in  the  rest  of  the  United  States  where  the  foreign-born 
laborers  constitute  one  tenth  of  the  total  number.  The 

1  See  Appendix,  Table  V. 

3  In  Pennsylvania  a  large  number  of  coal  miners  were  employed  in  the 
anthracite  mines;  the  latter,  however,  were  affected  by  the  strike  of  1902 
and  could  for  this  reason  not  be  included  in  a  comparison  between  the 
greatest  and  the  least  number  employed.  But  the  employment  of 
immigrants  is  general  in  both  classes  of  mines. 

*  Mines  and  Quarries,  p.  680. 

<  Detailed  statistical  data  for  each  State  will  be  found  in  the  Appendix 
Tables  VI.  and  VII. 


136 


Immigration  and  Labor 


TABLE  21. 

LABORERS   (MALE),  FOREIGN-BORN  AND  UNEMPLOYED,  IQOO. 


Areas 

Total 

Foreign-born 

Unemployed 

Number 

Per 
cent 

Number 

Per 

cent 

With  percentage  of 
foreign-born: 

Above  the  average  .  .  . 
Below  the  average  .  .  . 

1,317,218 
1,188,029 

580,682 
122,853 

44.1 
10.3 

570,401 
539,324 

43-3 
454 

With  percentage   of 
unemployed: 

Above  the  average  .  .  . 
Below  the  average  .  .  . 

1,031,548 
1,473.699 

252,453 
451  ,082 

24.4 
30.6 

498,881 
610,844 

484 
41.5 

Total  

2,505,247 

703,535 

28.1 

1,109,725 

44-3 

TABLE  22. 

COTTON-MILL     OPERATIVES    (MALE),    FOREIGN-BORN    AND    UNEMPLOYED, 

1900. 


Areas 

Total 

Foreign-born 

Unemployed 

Number 

Per 

cent 

Number 

Per 

cent 

With  percentage  of 
foreign-born: 

Above  the  average  .  .  . 
Below  the  average  .  .  . 

65,984 
59,031 

46,009 
1,982 

69.7 

34 

7,725 
8,551 

11.7 
14-5 

Total 

125,015 

47.991 

384 

16,276 

13-0 

With  percentage  of 
unemployed:1 

Above  the  average  .  .  . 
Below  the  average  .  .  . 

52,882 
7L7I9 

10,479 
37499 

19.8 
52-3 

8,380 
7,842 

15.6 
9-1 

Total  

124,601 

47,978 

38-5 

16,222 

13-0 

1  Exclusive  of  Kentucky  where  the  percentage  of  unemployed  is 
equal  to  the  average. 


Unemployment  137 

difference  is  negligible.  Evidently  conditions  of  employ- 
ment  of  unskilled  laborers  are  everywhere  such  that  well- 
nigh  one  half  of  them,  whether  native  or  foreign-born,  have 
no  steady  work  and  lose  a  part  of  their  time  during  the  year 
in  changing  from  one  situation  to  another.  If  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  States  is  reversed  and  they  are  grouped  into 
two  areas  according  to  whether  the  percentage  of  unemploy- 
ment is  above  or  below  the  average  for  the  United  States 
as  a  whole,  it  appears  that  in  the  area  with  the  higher  ratio 
of  unemployment  the  percentage  of  foreign-born  laborers 
is  lower. 

The  same  relation  is  disclosed  by  Table  22  with  regard  to 
male  cotton-mill  operatives.  In  the  area  with  70  per  cent 
of  foreign-born  operatives  the  percentage  of  unemployed 
is  slightly  less  than  in  the  area  where  96  per  cent  of  all 
operatives  are  of  native  birth.  Reversing  the  arrangement 
we  find  again  that  in  the  area  with  the  higher  ratio  of 
unemployment  only  one  fifth  of  all  operative  are  foreign- 
born,  whereas,  in  the  area  with  the  lower  ratio  of  unemploy- 
ment over  one  half  of  the  operative  force  are  immigrants. 
In  other  words,  immigrants,  as  a  rule,  are  not  attracted  to 
the  cotton  mills  of  those  States  where  opportunities  for 
steady  employment  are  less  favorable. 

The  preceding  analysis  justifies  the  conclusion  that  there 
is  no  causal  connection  between  unemployment  and  immi- 
gration, the  ratio  of  unemployment  within  the  same  occupa- 
tion being  substantially  the  same  in  areas  with  a  large 
immigrant  population  and  with  practically  none  at  all. 

The  preceding  conclusions  have  been  derived  from  an 
inquiry  into  the  conditions  of  employment  for  one  census 
year.  We  shall  next  examine  whether  there  is  any  connec- 
tion between  immigration  and  unemployment  compared 
for  a  series  of  years.  The  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Labor 
Statistics  has  collected  annual  statistics  of  the  greatest  and 
the  least  number  of  wage-earners  employed  in  factories 
since  the  middle  of  the  8o's.  Table  23  shows  the  variation 
of  the  ratio  of  unemployment  for  twenty  years  from  1888 


138 


Immigration  and  Labor 


to  1908.  The  standard  of  comparison  is  the  same  as  before, 
viz.,  the  difference  between  the  greatest  and  the  least 
number  employed.1 

TABLE  23. 

RATIO  OF  UNEMPLOYMENT  IN  MASSACHUSETTS,  1888-1908* 


Year 

Percent 

Year 

Per  cent 

Year 

Per  cent 

1888 

23 

1895 

26 

1902 

23 

1889 

23 

I896 

33 

1903 

25 

1890 

22 

1897 

28 

1904 

26 

1891 

22 

1898 

30 

1905 

23 

1892 

23 

1899 

26 

1906 

29 

1893 

36 

I90O 

27 

1907 

25 

1894 

33 

1901 

25 

1908 

33 

The  years  1893,  1894,  and  I9°8  show  the  effects  of  indus- 
trial crises,  and  the  year  1896  those  of  the  unsettled  business 
situation  produced  by  the  free  silver  agitation.  With 
those  exceptions  the  variation  of  the  ratio  of  unemployment 
from  year  to  year  is  small.  The  ratio  is  lower  for  the  seven 
years  of  the  present  century  characterized  by  heavy  immi- 
gration than  for  the  preceding  decade  when  immigration 
was  small.  The  relation  between  unemployment  and 
immigration  is  shown  graphically  in  Diagram  IX.3  It  is 
clearly  seen  that  with  increasing  immigration  unemploy- 

1  The  returns  are  not  complete,  especially  for  the  earlier  years;  a 
comparison  of  the  numbers  employed  would  therefore  be  misleading. 
Nevertheless,  the  numbers  reported  are  so  large  that  the  percentage  of 
unemployment  could  not  be  materially  varied  by  the  addition  of  the 
missing  figures.  The  inquiries  of  the  Bureau  call  for  the  number  em- 
ployed during  the  current  and  the  preceding  year.  As  a  result  the 
figures  for  the  previous  year  published  in  every  annual  report  are  more 
complete  than  those  published  the  year  before.  A  comparison  of  the 
percentage  of  unemployment  for  each  year  computed  from  the  numbers 
published  in  two  consecutive  reports  shows  that  the  variations  do  not 
exceed  a  fraction  of  I  per  cent.  In  Table  23  fractions  of  i  per  cent 
have  been  omitted.  a  See  Appendix,  Table  VIII. 

3  See  Appendix,  Table  IX. 


Unemployment 


139 

ment  decreases,  and  with  declining-immigration  unemploy- 
ment increases.     The  tendency  disclosed  by  this  diagram 
DIAGRAM  IX 


00 


<r« 


IX.    Ratio  of  unemployment  of  factory  workers  in  Massachusetts 

and  number  of  immigrant  breadwinners  destined  for 

Massachusetts,  1897-1908. 

is  but  a  corroboration  of  the  rule  that  immigration  follows 
the  demand  for  labor.     The  condition  in  Massachusetts, 


140 


Immigration  and  Labor 


which  is  a  manufacturing  State  with  a  large  immigrant 
population,  may  be  accepted  as  typical. 

Heretofore  we  have  dealt  with  unemployment  as  ex- 
pressed in  the  relative  number  of  wage-earners  unem- 
ployed during  any  portion  of  the  year,  regardless  of  the 
duration  of  employment.  It  is  maintained,  however,  by 
the  Immigration  Commission,  that  the  effects  of  immi- 
gration are  reflected  in  a  "  curtailed  number  of  working 
days"  per  wage-earner.  The  report  of  the  Commission 
contains  no  statistical  data  in  support  of  this  assertion. 
There  are,  however,  official  figures  on  this  subject  for  tho 
two  principal  States  affected  by  immigration,  New  York 
and  Pennsylvania.  Table  24  shows  the  number  of  days 
worked  in  the  bituminous  coal  mines  of  Pennsylvania  dur- 
ing the  calendar  years  1901-1909,  the  average  tonnage 
mined  per  day  per  man,  along  with  the  number  of  immigrant 
miners  and  laborers  bound  for  Pennsylvania  during  the 
fiscal  years  1901-1909.  In  Diagram  X  the  same  data  are 
represented  graphically. 

TABLE  24. 

AVERAGE  NUMBER  OF  DAYS  WORKED  IN  BITUMINOUS  COAL  MINES  OF 
PENNSYLVANIA,  AVERAGE  PRODUCTION  PER  EMPLOYEE  PER  DAl 
WORKED,  AND  NUMBER  OF  IMMIGRANT  MINERS  AND  LABORERS 
(INCLUDING  FARM  LABORERS)  DESTINED  FOR  PENNSYLVANIA, 
1901-1 909. * 


Year 

Immigrants 
(fiscal  years) 

Days 
(calendar  years) 

Tons  per  day 
(calendar  yean) 

1901 

63,713 

216 

3-5 

1902 

95.967 

221 

3-6 

1903 
1904 

II4,Ol8 
78,625 

216 
190 

It 

1905 

127,417 

216 

3-6 

1906 

116,923 

239 

3-4 

1907 

141,830 

238 

1908 

54.813 

I84 

3-6 

1909 

69,291 

2IO 

3-7 

1  Reports  of  the  Commissioner  of  Immigration,  1901,  Table  VII. ;  1902- 


CALENDAR  YEARS 


DIAGRAM  X. 


340 
330 

220 
2ZO 
20O 
190 
1 80 


ISO 


NUMBE K  OF 


100 


IMMIGRANT  MINERS  AND  LA&OR&& 
mr/tfYlVWM 


i •••!  ]  I  ri  i 


5C/M.  YEARS 


Average  number  of  days  worked  in  the  bituminous  coal  mines 
of  Pennsylvania  and  number  of  immigrant  miners  and 

laborers  destined  for  Pennsylvania,  1901-1909 
Scale  for  immigrants:    i  unit  =  1000 


142  Immigration  and  Labor 

The  average  number  of  days  the  mines  were  worked  might 
not  be  identical  with  the  average  number  of  days  of  em- 
ployment for  each  mine  worker.  But  the  average  tonnage 
mined  per  day  worked  serves  as  a  measure  of  the  amount  of 
work  furnished  every  miner  per  day.  The  average  for  the 
nine- year  period  is  a  little  over  three  and  a  half  tons  per 
employee  per  day,  the  fluctuations  from  year  to  year  are 
insignificant.  The  number  of  days  in  operation  accordingly 
represents  the  number  of  days  of  employment.  It  can  be 
seen  from  Diagram  X.  that  the  curves  representing  immigra- 
tion and  days  of  employment  run  almost  parallel.  The 
deviations  from  that  course  are  slight,  and  one  of  them  can 
be  accounted  for  by  temporary  conditions  unrelated  to 
immigration.  The  increase  of  the  average  number  of  days 
worked  in  1902  was  due  to  the  anthracite  coal  strike,  which 
increased  the  demand  for  bituminous  coal.  In  1903,  after 
the  settlement  of  the  strike,  the  number  of  days  worked 
again  dropped  to  the  level  of  1901.  Of  course,  no  mathe- 
matical accuracy  must  be  expected  from  these  curves. 
On  the  one  hand,  the  number  of  immigrant  laborers  com- 
prises a  great  many  who  found  employment  in  other  indus- 
tries than  bituminous  coal  mines;  on  the  other,  the  number 
of  days  is  not  a  weighted  average  and  has  only  the  value  of 
an  approximation.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  tendency 
of  the  two  curves  is  unmistakable;  the  number  of  days 
of  employment  rises  and  falls  as  immigration  rises  and 
falls. 

The  statistics  of  the  New  York  Labor  Bureau  are  col- 
lected annually  through  correspondence  with  officers  of  labor 
unions  and  show  the  number  of  days  of  employment  in 
organized  trades.  While  these  statistics  relate  primarily 
to  the  skilled  crafts  only,  yet  indirectly  they  reflect  the 
conditions  in  the  industrial  field  as  a  whole.  Nowadays 
there  are  few  skilled  crafts  that^o  not  enter  as  a  part  into 
a  larger  industrial  system.  Unemployment  of  the  engineer 

1908,  Table  IX;  1909,  p.  57.     Reports  of  the  Department  of  Mines  of 
Pennsylvania,  Part  II.,  for  the  years  1901  to  1909. 


Unemployment  143 

or  fireman  means  unemployment  for  a  number  of  factory 
hands. 

In  Diagram  XI.  days  of  employment  are  plotted  along 
with  the  number  of  immigrants,  exclusive  of  dependents,1 
who  gave  New  York  as  their  destination  on  landing.2 
The  two  upper  curves  represent  the  average  number  of 
days  of  employment  during  the  first  and  the  third  quarter 
of  every  year  from  1897  to  1909,*  the  lowest  heavy  line 
represents  immigration  of  breadwinners.  Contrary  to  the 
general  assumption,  the  rise  of  the  immigration  curve  is  not 
followed  by  a  decline  of  the  curves  representing  duration  of 
employment.  On  the  whole,  the  three  curves  move  in  a 
uniform  direction ;  the  number  of  days  of  work  increases  as 
immigration  increases,  and  declines  as  immigration  declines. 
In  the  fall  of  1900  (a  presidential  year),  there  was  less  work 
on  an  average  than  in  the  fall  of  1899,  but  the  middle  curve 
shows  that  conditions  improved  in  the  spring  of  1901. 
These  fluctuations  were  reflected  in  the  total  immigration 
for  the  fiscal  year  ended  June  30,  1901,  which  remained 
almost  stationary.  A  divergence  between  the  employment 
and  immigration  curves  strikes  the  eye  in  1907.  The 
spring  of  that  year  was  marked  by  a  decline  of  employment 
compared  with  the  preceding  year,  and  the  opportunities 
in  the  fall  showed  no  progress  compared  with  the  previous 
fall,  whereas  the  immigration  curve  was  still  rising.  The 
effects  of  the  curtailment  of  the  days  of  employment  were 
reflected  in  the  immigration  curve  next  year.  On  the  other 
hand  immigration  continued  to  decline  when  the  condition 
of  the  labor  market  began  to  improve.  The  conclusion 
that  can  be  drawn  from  this  divergence  is  that  it  takes  some 
time  before  the  conditions  of  the  labor  market  are  reflected 
in  the  immigration  movement.  As  stated  in  a  preceding 

*"No  occupation  (mostly  women  and  children),"  in  Immigration 
Bureau  terminology. 

3  For  detailed  figures  see  Appendix,  Table  XXIII. 

3  Annual  Report  of  the  New  York  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  1909, 
vol.  ii,  p.  xvii.,  Table  5. 


Days 


2       g 

cn  <o 


\ 


%\ 


\ 


2 


\ 


i 


\ 


\ 


in 


to 


trv 
*o. 


144 


Unemployment  145 

chapter,  the  arrivals  of  immigrants  in  the  United  States 
at  any  given  time  are  the  result  of  preparations  made  some 
months  before  their  embarkation  on  the  other  side.  Viewed 
as  a  whole,  however,  the  diagram  strongly  contradicts  the 
assumption  that  immigration  results  in  the  curtailment  of 
the  days  of  employment.  During  the  ten  normal  years 
1897-1906,  which  preceded  the  crisis  of  1907,  the  number  of 
working  days  increased  with  the  increase  of  immigration. 
It  could  not  have  been  a  fortuitous  coincidence.  No  one 
claims  that  the  arrival  of  the  immigrants  was  the  cause  of 
the  increase  of  the  per  capita  share  of  work.  By  the  method 
of  exclusion  there  is  room  for  no  other  inference  than  that 
immigration  has  merely  responded  to  the  increased  demand 
for  labor. 

The  preceding  analysis  may  be  summed  up  in  the  follow- 
ing proposition: 

Unemployment  and  immigration  are  the  effects  of 
economic  forces  working  in  opposite  directions;  that  which 
produces  business  expansion  reduces  unemployment  and 
attracts  immigration;  that  which  produces  business  de- 
pression increases  unemployment  and  reduces  immigration. 

Yet  it  may  be  said  that  while  immigration  is  not  a  con- 
tributory cause  of  unemployment,  restriction  of  immigra- 
tion would  nevertheless  reduce  unemployment.  An  answer 
to  this  argument  is  furnished  by  the  example  of  Australia, 
where  immigration  does  not  keep  up  with  emigration,  and 
yet  unemployment  is  an  ever-present  problem,  precisely  as 
in  the  United  States.  Australia  is  a  new  country  with 
abundant  natural  resources.  Its  area  is  as  great  as  that 
of  the  continental  United  States  (exclusive  of  Alaska), 
while  its  population  at  the  census  of  1906  was  a  million 
short  of  the  United  States  figure  for  1800.  The  Austral- 
ian statistics  of  unemployment  essentially  differ  from  ours. 
The  XII.  Census  counted  all  breadwinners  who  were  idle  at 
any  time  during  the  twelve  months  preceding  the  date  of 
enumeration.  The  statistics  of  the  New  York  Bureau  of  La- 
bor comprise  all  wage-earners  who  were  unemployed  during 


146  Immigration  and  Labor 

the  first  or  the  third  quarter  of  the  year.  The  Australian 
statistics,  on  the  other  hand,  give  the  number  unemployed 
on  the  date  of  enumeration.  A  comparison  of  the  Austra- 
lian ratio  of  unemployment  with  the  New  York  ratio  must 
therefore  be  favorable  to  Australia  and  unfavorable  to  New 
York.  Still  the  comparison  is  highly  instructive.  The 
Australian  ratio  in  1901  varied  from  3.96  per  cent  for 
South  Australia  to  6.73  per  cent  for  New  South  Wales.1 
In  the  State  of  New  York  the  total  amount  of  unemploy- 
ment for  the  three  summer  months,  July,  August,  and  Sep- 
tember, fluctuated  during  the  years  1897-1907  between 
1.9  per  cent  and  6.5  per  cent.2  It  thus  appears  that 
Australia  with  an  excess  of  emigration  over  immigration  is 
suffering  from  unemployment  at  least  as  much  as  the  State 
of  New  York,  which  is  teeming  with  immigrants.  It  is 
evident  that  unemployment  is  created  by  the  modern 
organization  of  industry  even  in  the  absence  of  all 
immigration. 

Unemployment  not  being  the  result  of  overpopulation,  it 
necessarily  follows  that  limitation  of  the  number  of  wage- 
earners  can  promise  no  relief  against  unemployment.  To 
be  effective,  any  proposed  remedy  must  attack  the  problem 
of  unemployment,  not  collaterally,  through  restriction  of 
immigration,  but  directly. 

A  radical  remedy  for  the  evils  of  unemployment  is  offered 
by  the  Code  of  Labor  Laws  of  the  Russian  Soviet  Govern- 
ment. The  law  assures  to  every  able-bodied  citizen  ' '  the  right 
to  employment*'  at  his  trade  or  vocation  at  the  standard 
wage  fixed  for  such  class  of  work.  The  Government,  through 
its  employment  service,  undertakes  to  find  a  job  for  every 
unemployed  worker.  Every  person  who  is  out  of  work  may 
register  at  the  local  office  of  the  Division  of  Distribution  of 
Labor  Power.  All  establishments  in  need  of  workers  may 

Victor  S.  Clark:  "Labor  Conditions  in  Australia,"  Bulletin  of  the 
Bureau  of  Labor,  No.  56  p.  180. 

*  Annual  Report  of  the  New  York  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  1909,  vol. 
ii.,  p.  xvii.,  Table  5. 


Unemployment  147 

likewise  register  with  the  local  government  employment  office 
their  demand  for  labor,  stating  the  qualifications  of  workers 
and  the  kind  of  work  required,  as  well  as  the  terms  of  em- 
ployment. The  local  office  assigns  the  applicants  in  the 
order  of  their  registration.  In  case  the  local  supply  of  work- 
ers is  insufficient  to  meet  the  demand  for  a  certain  class  of 
workers,  the  local  employment  office  communicates  with 
other  offices  within  the  same  region.  If  the  supply  of  labor 
of  a  certain  class  is  in  excess  of  the  demand,  the  applicant 
for  work  may  be  temporarily  offered  a  job  outside  of  his 
trade.  An  applicant  for  whom  no  employment  can  be  found 
is  entitled  to  draw  a  benefit,  equal  to  his  standard  wages, 
out  of  an  unemployment  insurance  fund  levied  on  all  em- 
ployers of  labor,  including  government  institutions.  When- 
ever a  worker  is  directed  to  a  position  below  his  grade  of 
work,  he  is  entitled  to  draw  upon  the  unemployment  insur- 
ance fund  for  the  difference  between  his  standard  rate  of 
wages  and  that  actually  offered  to  him.1 

1  Code  of  Labor  Laws.  Compilation  of  the  Statutes  and  Orders  of  the 
Labor  and  Farmer  Government,  December  10,  1918,  Sections  10,  20-23, 
26,  28-30,  and  Supp.  to  Sec.  79,  §§6,  7,  14,  15.  A  summary  of  that 
Code  appears  in  the  Monthly  Labor  Review  of  the  U.  S.  Dept.  of  Labor, 
April,  1920,  pp.  210-214. 


CHAPTER  VII 

RACIAL  STRATIFICATION 

I NDUSTRIAL  evolution  has  broken  down  the  stable  or- 
1  ganization  of  ancient  and  mediaeval  societies,  in  which 
every  individual  had  a  fixed  place  and  the  son  followed 
the  occupation  of  the  father.  Modern  industrial  society 
tends  to  revert  to  the  nomadic  type.  People  come  and  go, 
and  others  settle  in  their  places.  There  were,  in  1900, 
thirteen  and  a  half  million  persons  born  in  the  United  States 
who  were  living  outside  of  their  native  States.  There  is 
no  record  of  migration  within  State  limits.  Assuming  that 
the  number  of  native  citizens  migrating  within  their  State 
of  birth  is  equal  to  the  number  migrating  to  contiguous 
States,  six  millions  more  may  be  added  to  the  migratory 
population,  making  in  all  about  30  per  cent  of  the  total 
native  population.1  Yet  when  it  is  learned  that  of  the 
2,653,000  native  Missourians  who  were  living  in  the  United 
States,  618,000  resided  outside  of  their  native  State,  while 
855,000  natives  of  other  States  settled  in  Missouri,2  no  one 
takes  it  that  the  Missourians  were  "displaced"  by  the 
"invasion"  of  a  host  nearly  a  million  strong  from  Southern 
and  Eastern  States.  It  is  only  when  the  new-comers  are 
of  foreign  birth  that  the  impression  of  "racial  displace- 
ment" is  created. 

There  was  one  great  racial  displacement  in  America :  the 
Indian  was  displaced  from  his  land  by  the  European  in. 
vasion.  The  invasion  and  the  displacement  in  that  instance 

*XII.  Census,  Supplementary  Analysis,  p.  281. 
*Ibid.,  Table  61,  pp.  850  et  seq. 

148 


Racial  Stratification  149 

were  physical  acts,  not  metaphors.  When  the  term  "racial 
displacement"  is  applied  to  immigration,  it  suggests  the 
idea  of  a  virtual  crowding  out  of  the  native  American  by  the 
alien  invader.1  No  doubt,  in  the  shifting  of  population 
from  East  to  West,  from  country  to  city,  the  racial  composi- 
tion of  many  settlements  has  changed.  Within  the  memory 
of  the  present  generation  the  Irish  and  German  colonies  of 
New  York  City  gradually  moved  out  of  the  sections  they 
had  occupied  in  the  8o's  and  early  90*3  of  the  past  century 
and  in  their  places  Jewish  and  Italian  colonies  grew  up. 
Still  the  old  Irish  or  German  settler  of  ten  or  twenty  years 
ago  can  be  located  in  another  section  of  the  great  city,  and 
the  public  is  conscious  of  the  fact  that  he  has  simply  moved 
from  one  neighborhood  to  another  which  seemed  to  him 
more  attractive.  The  population  of  New  York  City, 
however,  is  large  enough  to  fill  several  States.  Were  the 
same  population  spread  over  a  hundred  cities  of  about 
forty  thousand  inhabitants  each  and  had  the  German  resi- 
dents of  one  city  gradually  moved  out  of  it  to  others  within 
a  radius  of  twenty-five  miles,  their  places  being  filled  by  a 
new  race,  the  change  would  be  keenly  felt  by  many.  The 
grocer,  the  butcher,  the  hotelkeeper,  the  physician,  the 
lawyer,  would  be  losing  patronage.  In  their  minds  the 
change  would  be  reflected  as  the  "displacement"  of  the  old 

'The  definition  of  the  word  "displacement"  given  by  the  Oxford 
English  Dictionary  is  as  follows: 

Displacement:  The  act  of  displacing  or  fact  of  being  displaced.  Re- 
moval of  a  thing  by  substitution  of  something  else  in  its  place. — 1880, 
Library  Universal  Knowledge:  "The  displacement  of  human  labor 
through  machinery." 

Hydrostatics:  The  displacing  of  a  liquid  by  a  body  immersed  in  or 
floating  on  it. 

Displace: 

1 .  To  remove  or  shift  from  its  place;  to  put  out  of  the  usual  place. 

2.  To  remove  from  a  position,  dignity,  or  office. 

3.  To  oust  (something)  from  its  place  and  occupy  it  instead.  .  .  . 

(fc)  to  take  the  place  of,  supplant,  replace. —  A.  R.  Wallace, 
"Darwinism";  "This  weed  .  .  .  absolutely  displaced  every 
other  plant  on  the  ground." 


150  Immigration  and  Labor 

settlers  by  the  new-comers.  And  yet  the  element  of  crowd- 
ing out,  even  in  a  metaphorical  sense,  might  be  wholly 
absent.  The  abandonment  of  the  New  England  farms  may 
serve  as  an  illustration.  No  one  "displaced"  the  New 
England  farmer ;  the  population  of  many  a  town  fell  off,  but 
few  new  settlers,  native  or  foreign-born,  came  to  take  the 
places  of  those  who  had  gone.  The  old  homesteads  were 
left  to  decay  and  their  proprietors  went  West,  where  they 
found  better  opportunities.  And  now  we  witness  the  same 
movement  in  Iowa,  whose  population  has  decreased  since 
1900,  the  farmers  being  attracted  by  cheaper  lands  in 
Western  Canada. 

Is  it  not  possible  that  a  similar  process  has  been  going  on 
in  manufacturing,  in  mining,  in  railroading?  Where  there 
was  a  wilderness  thirty  years  ago,  several  new  States  with  a 
substantial  population  have  grown  up.  The  railroads  of 
the  West  needed  employees,  who  had  to  come  from  the  East. 
From  1879  to  1909,  the  manufactures  of  New  England  and 
the  Middle  Atlantic  States  added  one  and  a  half  million 
wage-earners  to  their  personnel,  whereas  the  industrial 
development  of  the  rest  of  the  country  created  opportunities 
for  two  and  one  third  million  new  hands,  as  shown  in  Table 
25  next  below.  The  manufactures  in  the  West  and  South 
grew  much  faster  than  in  the  East  and  drew  some  of  the 
native  workers  and  earlier  immigrants  from  the  older  manu- 
facturing States.  Still  the  demand  for  labor  in  those 
States  also  grew.  The  places  left  vacant  by  the  old 
employees  who  had  gone  westward  had  to  be  filled  by 
new  immigrants.  The  term  "displacement"  would  be 
misapplied  to  such  a  migration  of  wage-earners,  as 
much  as  in  the  case  of  the  migration  of  the  New  England 
farmer. 

Let  us  see  what  light  can  be  thrown  upon  this  question 
by  the  statistics  of  occupations.  According  to  the  figures 
of  the  XII.  Census,  covering  the~whole  area  of  the  United 
States,  the  economic  stratification  within  the  principal 


Racial  Stratification 


elements  of  the  white  population  in  1900  exhibited  very 
characteristic  differences,  as  appears  from  Table  26. 

TABLE  25. 

AVERAGE  NUMBER  OF  WAGE-EARNERS  EMPLOYED  IN  MANUFACTURES 
(THOUSANDS),  1879-1909.1 


] 

ncrease 

Geographic  divisions 

1879 

1909 

Number 

Per  cent 

New  England  and  Middle  Atlan- 
tic States  

1700 

-I-7QQ 

TCTQ 

8* 

All  other  States  

QAO 

11O6 

2-766 

°o 

OC2 

OO*-"-1 

•«o-* 

Total,  United  States.  ... 

2710 

6615 

188  <; 

Id.2 

TABLE  26. 

PER   CENT   DISTRIBUTION   OF   MALE    BREADWINNERS   21   YEARS  OF 
AGE  AND  OVER,  BY  NATIVITY  AND  CLASS  OF  OCCUPATIONS, 


Nativ< 

;  white 

T»             » 

Native 
parents 

Foreign 
parents 

white 

Industrial  wage-earners  

27.6 

4O.8 

52.8 

Business  3  and  professional  pursuits,  com- 
mercial and  clerical  employment  

57  7 

4.-I.Q 

^5.5 

All  others  

14.  7 

1C.  7 

II.  7 

The  majority  of  Americans  of  native  parentage,  in  1900, 
were  engaged  in  farming,  in  business,  in  the  professions, 
and  in  all  sorts  of  commercial  and  clerical  pursuits.  The 
majority  of  the  immigrants,  on  the  other  hand,  were  indus- 
trial wage-earners.4 

The  question  is,  was  t-his  adjustment  of  native  and 
foreign  elements  on  the  scale  of  occupations  attended  by 
actual  " racial  displacement"?  Comparing  the  numbers 

1XII.  Census,  vol.  vii.,  pp,  clxxii-clxxiii.— XIII.  Census,  Manu- 
factures, vol.  viii.,  p.  542. 

3  Isaac  A.  Hourwich,  "The  Social-Economic  Classes  of  the  Population 
of  the  United  States."    The  Journal  of  Political  Economy,  April,  191 1 ,  p. 
227.  3  Including  farming. 

4  Speaking  of  the  immigrants   in   a  "representative"  coal-mining 
community  (Shenandoah,  Pa.),  the  Immigration  Commission  states 


152  Immigration  and  Labor 

of  persons  engaged  in  each  occupation  at  the  censuses  of 
1900  and  1890,  we  find  a  decrease  of  native  breadwinners 
in  the  following  occupations : 

TABLE  27. 

OCCUPATIONS  IN  WHICH  THE  NUMBER  OF  NATIVE-BORN  DECREASED, 
1 890- 1 900. l 

Native-born  of  native  parentage.  Decrease 

Male:  (Thousands) 

Carpenters  and  Joiners 25 

Boot-  and  shoe-makers  and  repairers  12 

Woodworkers,  including  cabinet  makers  and  coopers . .  7 

Masons 6 

Boatmen,  canalmen,  pilots,  and  sailors 3 

Dairymen 2 

Brick  and  tile  makers I 

Tailors I 

All  others 19 

Total 76 

Female: 

Seamstresses 9 

Tailoresses I 

Textile  mill  operatives 2 

Dairywomen I 

Total 13 

Both  sexes 89 

Native-born  of  foreign  parentage. 
Male: 

Brick  and  tile  makers I 

Dairymen I 

All  others I. 

Total 3 

Female: 

Cotton  mill  operatives I 

Tailoresses i_ 

Total 2_ 

Both  sexes 5^ 

GRAND  TOTAL 94 

that  they  "have  done  practically  nothing  in  the  way  of  initiating  new 
industries.  ...  A  few  small  candy  and  cigar  factories  and  blacksmith 
shops  have  been  established  by  foreigners,  but  these  are  insignificant  in 
number  and  size."  (Reports,  vol.  16,  p-655.)  All  schools  of  political 
economy  agree  that  "initiating  new  industries"  is  the  function  of 
capital.  But  the  majority  of  the  foreigners  are  wage-earners. 
1  See  Appendix,  Table  X. 


Racial  Stratification 


153 


In  all,  from  1890  to  1900,  94,000  native  breadwinners 
dropped  out  of  the  occupations  enumerated  in  the  preceding 
table.  If  we  were  to  assume  that  this  figure  represents 
actual  displacement  (which  it  does  not,  as  will  presently  be 
shown),  it  would  amount  to  only  2.5  per  cent  of  the  total 
immigration  for  the  decade  1890-1900.  At  the  same  time 
the  increase  of  native  white  of  native  parentage  in  all  occu- 
pations, exclusive  of  farming,  exceeded  two  and  a  half 
millions.  It  means  that  there  were  twenty-five  other 
opportunities  for  every  position  given  up  by  the  native 
breadwinners  of  the  above  enumerated  classes. 

The  figure  94,000  must  not  be  mistaken,  however,  for 
the  number  of  individuals  discharged  from  their  former 
positions.  In  the  first  place,  an  allowance  must  be  made  for 
decrease  by  death.  Taking  those  occupations  which  are 
specified  in  the  statistics  of  mortality  at  the  XII.  Census,  we 
obtain  the  following  comparative  ratios: 

TABLE  28. 

DECREASE  FROM  ALL  CAUSES,  COMPARED    WITH  LOSS  BY  DEATH  AMONG 

NATIVE  WHITE  MALES  OF  NATIVE  PARENTAGE,   IN  SELECTED 

OCCUPATIONS,    I890-I900. x 


Occupations 

Number 
engaged 
(Thousands) 

Per  cent  of  total  for  each  occupation 

1890 

1900 

Decrease 

Loss 
by 
death 

Net  accessions  (  +) 
or 
defections(-) 

Masons 

65 

37 

354 
15 

71 

59 
34 

329 
14 

59 

-  9-2 
-  8.1 

-  7-1 
-  6.7 

—  16.9 

-19.9 
-18.8 

-17-2 
-II.  8 

-  9-4 

+  10.7 
+  10.7 

4-10.  1 
+  5-1 

-   7-5 

Boatmen,  canalmen, 
pilots,  and  sailors. 
Carpenters  and 
joiners     . 

Tailors 

Boot-  and  shoe- 
makers and  re- 
pairers 

1  XII.  Census,  Vital  Statistics,  vol.  i.,  p.  ccix.  Occupations  at  the 
XII.  Census,  Table  2.  Compendium  of  the  XI.  Census,  Part  III:  Popu- 
lation, Table  78. 


154  Immigration  and  Labor 

The  decrease  of  the  number  of  native  white  males  of 
native  parentage  in  all  but  the  last  occupation  included  in 
the  preceding  table  is  accordingly  accounted  for  by  the 
fact  that  the  new  accessions  from  that  class  were  insufficient 
to  fill  the  places  of  those  who  died. 

On  the  other  hand,  an  actual  decrease  of  the  number  of 
American  workmen  of  native  stock  was  found  among  shoe- 
makers and  repairers.  On  closer  scrutiny,  however,  it 
appears  that  this  decrease  was  merely  a  part  of  a  general 
decline  of  the  trade,  which  manifested  itself  in  a  decrease  of 
the  number  of  foreign-born  shoemakers  as  well.  Among 
other  occupations  of  the  same  class  were  brick  and  tile 
makers,  whose  total  number  was  reduced  by  10,000,  and 
dairymen  whose  number  was  reduced  by  8000;  more  than 
one  half  of  those  reductions  affected  foreign-born  workers 
(7000  in  the  former  and  4000  in  the  latter  occupation). 
The  same  is  true  of  the  other  occupations  specified  in  Table 
27.  As  far  as  can  be  judged  from  census  figures,  there  was 
consequently  no  "displacement"  of  native  by  foreign 
workmen. 

Coming  to  female  wage-earners,  we  find  that  while  there 
was  a  decrease  of  13,000  American  women  of  native  stock 
and  of  2000  native  of  immigrant  parentage  employed  as 
seamstresses,  tailoresses,  textile  mill  operatives,  and  dairy- 
women,  the  number  of  servants  and  waitresses  showed  a 
decrease  of  41,000  foreign-born,  contemporaneous  with  an 
increase  of  16,000  white  American  girls  of  native  stock 
and  47,000  native  daughters  of  immigrants.  It  may  be  in- 
ferred from  these  figures  that  the  women  of  the  "new  im- 
migration "  showed  a  tendency  to  prefer  factory  work  to 
domestic  service,  while  the  tendency  among  native  American 
girls  was  in  the  opposite  direction. x 

1  Most  of  the  female  factory  workers_being  young,  the  decrease  by 
mortality  may  be  disregarded.  On  the  other  hand,  however,  "women 
enter  industry  only  temporarily.  The  census  shows  that  the  great 
majority  of  them  who  are  at  work  are  between  16  and  30  years  of  age — 
that  is,  they  are  in  industry  until  they  get  married. "  (Nearing :  Wages 


Racial  Stratification  155 

On  the  whole,  the  number  of  native  women  of  native 
parentage  in  gainful  occupations  increased  by  more  than 
half  a  million,  as  against  a  possible  displacement  of  13,000; 
in  other  words,  for  every  native  woman  of  native  paren- 
tage who  left  the  mill  or  clothing  factory  there  were  forty 
women  of  the  same  nativity  who  found  new  openings. 
The  increase  of  the  number  of  professional  women  of 
that  class  was  63,000,  i.  e.,  nearly  five  times  as  great  as 
the  decrease  of  the  number  of  native  American  factory 
girls.  The  loss  of  the  2000  positions  by  native  women  of 
foreign  parentage  was  compensated  by  an  increase,  of 

348,000  in  the  number  of  the  same  nativity  employed  in  all 

J  orfsro  fenoifiboB 
occupations.  .p  ; 

It  is  evident  from  these  figures  that  the  "displacement," 
if  there  was  any,  was  negligible,  and.  moreover  that  it  did 
not  manifest  itself  in  those  occupations  which  are  believed 
to  be  affected  by  immigration.  The  three  occupations 

mostly  spoken  of  in    connectioii   witn  /  ^racial   dfeplace- 

,  ,  ,       .        ,  ,  .        Sum  2l9"iod£l  fUoq-fmi'/ioT  io 

ment      viz.,  laborers,  miners,  and  iron  and  steel   work- 

1  •  •  t_  't  '•i;'J.'.  '    •'•'      i  r       '2- 

ers,  show  increasing  numbefs^pja^e  ^or^en  of  nafovj 

paren  age.  iO^oab  Ijrm;t£ri  oifl  io'l  cm  OvLwn 

Unskilled  laborers  appear  in  census  statistics  under,  TWO 
designations  :  '  '  agricultural  ^laborers,  "^nd"  laborers  ,  not 
specified."  At  the  census  of  .1890,  many  farm  laborers  in 
agricultural  districts  were  reported  sirnplv^a^^^lgQqr^ijs^^ 
while  at  the  census  of  1900  tjbje  djs^c|iprn^between  these  two 
classes  was  more  strictly  drawn.  In  consequence,  the  in- 
crease of  the  number  of  non-agricultural  laborers,  appearing 
from  the  census  returns  forfi^p^J;is  below  ^e.aptfjai^figui^. 
The  increase  of  the  number  .of  non-agricultural  laborers  iden- 

tified as  such  and  d^^f^y&f^0^4l!o^ 
Table  29  next  below  : 

.qq  ,s  olduT  ,iuim 

--  .8?  jIJoT  iKC  -'-I  .aft  oUflT  .  JI 


*.  the  United  States, 

number  of  women  of  every  nativity  engaged  in  a  given  occupation  would 
accordingly  be  greatly  reduced  by  marriage,  unless  there  were  Others  of 
the  same  class  to  fill  their'places.  "  ^£<yor?  .qq  ^,  ,  .^r 


156  Immigration  and  Labor 

TABLE  29. 

INCREASE  OF  THE   NUMBER  OF  LABORERS  IN  THE   UNITED  STATES, 
CLASSIFIED  BY  RACE  AND  NATIVITY,  1890-1900.  * 

.      Race  and  Nativity  (Thousands). 

Native  white 458 

Native  father 333 

Foreign  father 125 

Foreign-born 41 

Colored 158 

Total... 657 

It  appears  from  Table  29  that  only  6  per  cent  of  the 
additional  demand  for  unskilled  labor  was  supplied  by 
immigrants.  Since  the  percentage  of  foreign-born  among 
agricultural  laborers  is  much  smaller  than  among  other 
unskilled  laborers,2  the  underestimate  of  the  numerical 
increase  of  the  foreign-born  in  the  latter  class  is  smaller 
than  for  the  occupation  in  general ;  the  percentage  of  increase 
of  foreign-born  laborers  must  accordingly  be  rather  over- 
estimated than  underestimated.  In  other  words,  immigra- 
tion during  the  decade  1890-1900  was  barely  sufficient  to 
make  up  for  the  natural  decrease  of  unskilled  laborers  by 
death. 

Yet  the  totals  for  the  country  at  large  might  conceal 
local  displacements  of  considerable  magnitude.  Turning 
to  the  State  figures  for  1890  and  1900  we  find  a  decrease  of 
the  number  of  native  white  laborers  of  native  parentage 
in  the  following  States:  Colorado,  1000  men;  Delaware, 
100  men;  Utah,  100  men;  and  Rhode  Island,  300  men.3 
But  in  the  first  three  States  the  number  of  foreign-born 
laborers  likewise  decreased.  The  total  "displacement"  of 
native  white  laborers  of  native  parentage  by  immigrants 

1  Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  Table  2,  pp.  10  and  1 1.  XI.  Census, 
Population,  Part  II.,  Table  82,  p.  354;  Table  78,  p.  304. 

aThe  ratio  of  foreign-born  in  1900  was_5.8  per  cent  among  agricul- 
tural laborers  and  27.1  per  cent  among  "laborers  not  specified." 
— Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  Table  2,  pp.  10  and  II. 

*  Ibid.,  Table  41,  pp.  220-423.  XI.  Census,  Population,  Part  II., 
Table  116,  pp.  530-627. 


Racial  Stratification  157 

was  thus  represented  by  a  decrease  of  300  men  in  the  Sta,te 
of  Rhode  Island,  or  by  thirty  men  annually.  It  is  within 
the  range  of  possibility  that  those  thirty  men  may  have 
crossed  the  State  line  to  Massachusetts  or  Connecticut, 
the  first  of  which,  shows  an  increase  of  2100  and  the  second 
an  increase  of  1400  native  white  laborers  of  native  parent- 
age. No  decrease  of  the  number  of  common  laborers 
among  the  native  white  of  native  parentage  appears  in  any 
of  the  great  States  which  serve  as  centres  of  attraction  for 
immigration.  The  native  white  of  foreign  parentage  show 
an  increase  during  the  same  period  in  every  State  and 
territory. 

What  has  been  said  of  laborers  is  equally  applic- 
able to  miners,  as  can  be  seen  from  Table  30,  two 
thirds  of  the  increased  demand  for  miners  having  been 
supplied  by  native-born  workmen  and  only  one  third  by 
immigrants. 

^TABLE  30. 

INCREASE   OF   TEE   NUMBER   OF   MINERS  IN  THE   UNITED   STATES, 
CLASSIFIED   BY  NATIVITY   (THOUSANDS),    1890-1900. x 

Native  white 108 

Native  parents 73 

Foreign  parents 35 

Colored 13 

Foreign-born 61 

Total 182 

Comparing  the  number  of  miners  by  States  in  1890  and 
1900,  we  find  a  decrease  in  the  employment  of  native  white 
miners  only  in  the  following  States2: 

» XL  Census,  Population,  Part  II.,  p.  304.  Table  78,  and  pp.  354  and 
355,  Table  82.  Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  Table  2,  pp.  12  and  13. 

» XI.  Census,  Population,  Part  II.,  Table  116,  pp.  540,  564.  5^2,  5»4. 
594,  608,  and  616.  Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  Table  41,  pp.  242, 
294,  332,  334.  358.  386  and  400. 


158  Immigration  and  Labor 

TABLE  31. 

DECREASE  OF  THE  NUMBER  OF  NATIVE  WHITE  MINERS, 
BY  STATES. 

Maine 200 

New  Hampshire 100 

Vermont 200 

Connecticut 200 

North  and  South  Dakota. 100 

Nevada 500 

Total 1300 

The  total  loss  of  1300  positions  by  native  miners  would 
have  been  amply  compensated  by  the  employment  of  70,000 
American  miners  of  native  stock  in  excess  of  the  number 
employed  at  the  preceding  census.  In  fact,  however,  not 
all  of  this  decrease  represents  "racial  displacement."  In 
Connecticut,  Maine,  and  Nevada,  it  was  due  to  a  general 
decline  of  the  mining  and  quarrying  industry,  which  affected 
all  employees,  native  as  well  as  foreign-born.  The  actual 
"displacement"  was  confined  to  400  men  in  New  Hampshire, 
Vermont,  and  the  Dakotas,  without  any  allowance  for 
decrease  by  death.  Non^oJ^tl^se  States  was  affected  oy 
the  ' '  new  immigration, ' '  Such  States  as  Pennsylvania  and 
Illinois,  on  the  other  hand,  showed  large  increases  in  the 
number  of  native  miners,  both  of  foreign  arid  bt  native 
parentage.  •  ^noi^q  ovituVl 

The  Statistics  of  iron  and  steel  workers  ci^ssMe^y  race 
and  nativity  appear  in  Table  32.  The  fundamMtal  fact 
brought  out  by  the  table  is  the  differericeKiriritfie)'rate  of 
industrial  expansion  between  the  two  last  decades  of  the 
past  century;  while  in  1880-1890  the  increase  in  the  number 
oljsm&fo^ 

period  1890-1900  the  demand  for  labor  doubled.  The 
effect  of  this  difference' is  s'deri  iri'ffie'faH'tha't  dnriiig'the 
first  period,  when  tfte.  jnumber  of  immigrants  from  Southern 

DIIS  -wLf.  .ny  T>n.LL,8T  oicffiT  ,|.Of  .q-JI.-tV'  *  .woiUuM^oH..^^!**1^.  AY     i 
and  Eastern  Europe  was  negligible^  only  12,000  additional 

American  workmen  found  employment  in  thearon  and  steel 
industry,  or  one  man  to  every  six  who  had  been  employed 
in  1880;  during  the  period  1890-1900,  on -the:  other  hand, 


Racial  Stratification  159 

when  immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  began 
to  come  in,  the  number  of  native  employees  of  every  nativity 
more  than  doubled.  For  every  one  additional  American 
workman  engaged  in  1880-1890,  eight  new  American  work- 
men were  added  to  the  labor  forces  in  1890-1900,  and  there 
was  still  room  for  immigrants. 

TABLE  32. 

NUMBER  OF   IRON   AND    STEEL    WORKERS    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES,   BY 
RACE  AND  NATIVITY  (THOUSANDS),   l88o,  1890,  AND 


lucres 

se 

Race  and  Natirity 

1880 

1890 

1900 

1880-1890 

1890-1900 

Native-born,  total  

7-7 

8^ 

184 

12 

White,  total  

n 

70 

172 

yy 

Q1 

Native  parents  .  .  . 

(*> 

4.C 

Q4, 

12 

yo 

AQ 

W 

-14. 

78 

Vy 

AA. 

Colored  

(*) 

6 

12 

6 

Foreign-born,  total  

4.2 

c8 

lO'l 

1*6 

AC 

Eastern  and  Southern 
Europe  . 

£ 

24. 

21 

All  other  countries  

42 

55 

79 

13 

24 

Grand  total  

lie 

14.1 

287 

28 

Id.4. 

(*)  Not  reported. 

As  stated  above,  an  increase  of  the  total  number  of  native 
workmen  in  the  United  States  does  not  preclude  the  possi- 
bility of  local  displacements  of  native  workmen  by  immi- 
grants. As  an  actual  fact,  however,  no  evidence  of  such 
displacements  can  be  discovered  by  a  comparison  of  the 
distribution  of  iron  and  steel  workers  by  States  in  1890  and 
1900.  In  two  States  only  the  census  returns  for  1900 
showed  a  decrease  of  native  white  iron  and  steel  workers 
since  1890,  viz.,  in  Montana  100  men,  and  Nebraska  300 
men;  total,  400  men.  Neither  of  these  States  holds  an 
important  place  in  the  iron  and  steel  industry.  Both 

1  Compiled  from  the  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  8, 
pp.  21-22,  Tables  14  and  15,  and  vol.  I,  pp.  784,  785,  Table  4. 


i6o 


Immigration  and  Labor 


States  show  a  general  decline  of  the  number  of  iron  and 
steel  workers  from  1890  to  1900,  viz.,  Montana  from  600  to 
300  and  Nebraska  from  1000  to  500.  This  decline  affected 
foreign-born  as  well  as  native  workers.  Alabama  alone 
shows  a  displacement  of  the  majority  of  colored  iron  and 
steel  workers  (1300  out  of  a  total  of  1700)  by  immigrants. 
But  while  the  aggregate  decrease  of  the  number  of  native 
white  and  colored  workers  through  racial  displacement  and 
other  causes  did  not  exceed  1700  men  in  three  States,  the 
total  increase  of  the  number  of  native-born  iron  and  steel 
workers  in  the  United  States  was  as  high  as  99,000,  dis- 
tributed over  all  important  iron-  and  steel-producing 
States.1 

We  may  go  one  step  further,  following  the  lead  of  the 
Immigration  Commission  into  four  of  the  principal  centers 
of  the  iron  and  steel  industry,  but  we  shall  look  in  vain  for 
evidence  of  "racial  displacement."  The  results  of  the 
comparison  are  presented  in  Table  33. 

TABLE  33. 

INCREASE  OF  THE  NUMBER  OF  IRON  AND  STEEL  WORKERS  IN  THE   PRIN- 
CIPAL CITIES  OF  THE  MIDDLE  WEST  BY  RACE  AND  NATIVITY, 


City 

Native-born 

Foreign 
white 

Grand 
total 

White 

Colored 

Total 

Native 
parents 

Foreign 
parents 

Chicago,  Illinois.  .  . 
Milwaukee,  Wis- 

404 

110 
222 

83 

1522 

1002 
1031 
152 

3707 

21 
I 

39 
I 

1947 

III3 
1292 
236 

1166 

1324 
2377 
249 

6113 

2437 
3669 

485 

Cleveland,Ohio... 
Toledo,  Ohio  

Total  for  the  4 
cities 

SlQ 

62 

4588 

8116 

12,704 

1XII.  Census,  Occupations,  Table  41,  pp.  220-423;  XI.  Census, 
Population,  Part  II.,  pp.  530-627. 

a  Computed  from  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  9, 
p.  9,  Tables  559  and  560. 


Racial  Stratification  161 

In  every  one  of  the  four  cities  chosen  for  comparison  by 
the  Commission  we  find  an  actual  increase  in  the  number  of 
native  workers  of  native  and  foreign  parentage,  white  and 
colored.  Of  course,  this  fact  does  not  mean  that  every 
individual  worker  of  old  American  stock  who  had  been 
employed  in  the  iron  and  steel  mills  of  Chicago  or  Cleveland 
in  1 890  was  holding  his  old  place  in  1900.  Some  surely  have 
left  the  mills  and  gone  to  other  occupations,  while  their 
particular  places  may  have  been  filled  by  immigrants, 
which  gives  occasion  to  old-timers  to  speak  in  a  reminiscent 
mood  of  "racial  displacement."  But  the  scientific  inves- 
tigator must  look  beyond  individual  life  stories  to  the 
movements  of  population  as  reflected  in  great  numbers. 
The  effect  of  immigration  upon  the  distribution  of  the 
native-  and  foreign-born  labor  forces  is  shown  in  Table  34 
next  following,  compiled  from  material  collected  by  the 
Immigration  Commission. 

"  In  this  table  skilled  laborers  are  arbitrarily  considered 
to  be  those  who  are  receiving  more  than  $1.45  per  day 
(i4j/£  cents  per  hour),  and  unskilled  laborers  those  receiv- 
ing $1.45  or  less  per  day.  The  classification  is  made  upon 
the  basis  of  the  wage-scale  of  the  steel  company,  which 
provides  for  a  maximum  payment  of  $1.45  for  a  day  of  ten 
hours  to  unskilled  or  common  laborers." 

The  effect  of  immigration  upon  the  distribution  of  the 
labor  forces  in  the  iron  and  steel  industry  is  apparent  from 
the  following  table;  all  but  one  tenth  of  the  native  and 
Northern  and  Western  European  workmen  have  been 
shifted  to  skilled  occupations,  while  nine  tenths  of  all 
unskilled  positions  have  been  filled  by  new  immigrants 
from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  "The  change  is 
sometimes  described  as  a  forcing  out  of  the  American  and 
Americanized  foreign  employees.  That  is  hardly  accurate, 
however,"  says  the  Immigration  Commission,  "for  the 


162 


Immigration  and  Labor 


TABLE  34. 

NUMBER  AND    PER  CENT  OF  SKILLED   AND  UNSKILLED  LABORERS    IN  ONE 
IRON   AND   STEEL  CONCERN,    1907. r 


Nationality 

Number 

Per  cent  of  total  for 
each  national  group 

Total 

Skilled 

Unskilled 

Skilled 

Unskilled 

Native  white: 
Foreign-  born: 
From    Northern 
and  Western 
Europe  

5257 

27 
31 

4 

$ 

841 

38 
731 
2434 
1371 
1391 
964 

3471 
6929 

4678 

27 
30 

55 
1530 
395 
346 
743 

9l 

280 
126 
84 
5 

3126 
598 

579 

0 

i 
4 
157 
45 

£ 

6335 

2154 
1245 
1307 

959 

345 
6331 

89.0 
1  00.0 

96.8 

93-2 
90.7 
89.8 
89.6 

88.3 

18.4 
i3-i 
II-5 
9.2 
6.0 
•5 

90.1 
8.6 

II.O 

o.o 

i:I 

9-3 

IO.2 
IO.4 
II.7 

81.6 
86.9 
88.5 
90.8 
94.0 
95-5 

9-9 
91.4 

Scotch.  .   . 

Swedish  

Welsh  

English  

Irish  

From     Southern 
and   Eastern 
Europe: 
Bohemian.  .  .  . 
Magyar  

Slovak  

Polish 

Croatian  
Italian. 

Recapitulation: 
From    Northern 
and  Western 
Europe  

From     Southern 
and   Eastern 
Europe  

Total  white... 

15,657 

8402 

7253 

53-8 

46.2 

1  Compiled  from  the  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  8, 
p.  350,  Table  252. 


Racial  Stratification  163 

immigrant  does  not  appear  to  underbid  the  American,  or  at 
the  present  time  to  be  even  competing  with  him  in  any 
serious  way  for  the  better-paid  positions. "x  In  reality,  the 
"racial  displacement"  has  manifested  itself  in  that 

a  part  of  the  earlier  employees  who  remained  in  the  industries  in  which 
they  were  employed  before  the  advent  of  the  Southern  and  Eastern 
European,  have  been  able,  because  of  the  demand  growing  out  of  the 
general  industrial  expansion,  to  rise  to  more  skilled  and  responsible 
executive  and  technical  positions  which  required  employees  of  training 
and  experience  .  .  . 

The  same  tendency  asserts  itself  in  the  distribution  of  employees 
according  to  race  in  bituminous  coal  mines,  where  all  occupations  of  a 
higher  grade  are  filled  by  native  Americans  or  older  immigrants  and 
their  children,  while  the  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  are  confined 
to  pick  mining  and  unskilled  and  common  labor.  The  same  situation 
exists  in  other  branches  of  manufacturing  enterprise.3 

This  racial  distribution  of  the  operating  forces  has 
developed  a  deep  social  tendency  which  constitutes  the 
main  distinction  between  American  and  European  labor 
conditions.  It  is  pretty  generally  accepted  by  European 
economists,  nowadays,  that  concentration  of  industry  has 
reduced  the  ratio  of  proprietors  to  wage-earners  and  thereby 
diminished  the  probability  of  a  wage-earner  working  his 
way  up  to  the  status  of  a  proprietor;  at  the  same  time  the 
introduction  of  machinery  has  reduced  the  relative  number 
of  skilled  mechanics  to  a  minority  of  the  operating  force, 
leaving  to  the  mass  of  unskilled  laborers  few  opportunities 
for  advancement  on  the  scale  of  occupations.  As  a  result, 
the  average  European  laborer  has  come  to  regard  his  place 
in  the  industrial  system  as  fixed.  Such  has  not  been  the 
attitude  of  the  American  wage-earner.  Though  the  intro- 
duction of  machinery  has  had  the  tendency  in  the  United 
States,  as  in  Europe,  to  reduce  the  relative  number  of 
skilled  mechanics,  yet  the  rapid  pace  of  industrial  expansion 
has  increased  the  number  of  skilled  and  supervisory  positions 

r  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  8,  p.  583. 
3  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  195, 196. 


164  Immigration  and  Labor 

so  fast  that  all  but  "the  thriftless,  unprogressive  elements 
of  the  original  operating  forces  " *  have  had  the  opportunity 
to  advance  on  the  scale  of  occupations.  The  few  examples 
of  "captains  of  industry"  who  have  risen  from  the  ranks  of 
labor  will  inspire  only  the  most  optimistic.  But  the 
presence  of  great  numbers  of  commonplace  American  work- 
men who  started  at  the  bottom  and  have  advanced  to  better 
paid  positions  in  the  mills  has  kept  up  in  the  average 
American  wage-earner  the  ambition  to  rise  individually. 
A  good  illustration  of  these  tendencies  is  furnished  by  the 
statistics  of  the  iron  and  steel  industry.  Of  the  15,657  white 
iron  and  steel  workers  employed  in  all  plants  of  Industrial 
Concern  No.  I  in  1907,  about  one  half  were  American  and 
Americanized  skilled  men.  (See  Table  34  above.)  Looking 
back  to  the  time  before  the  advent  of  the  immigrants  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe,  we  shall  find  that  the  oppor- 
tunity for  all  of  the  original  operating  forces  to  advance  to 
skilled  positions  was  conditioned  upon  the  concern  doubling 
its  force  within  the  period  of  working  efficiency  of  one 
generation.  It  has  been  shown  that  the  total  number 
employed  in  the  iron  and  steel  industry  of  the  United  States 
doubled  from  1890  to  1900.  It  is  easy  to  calculate  what 
the  opportunities  of  the  "English-speaking"2  wage-earners 

1  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  tit.,  p.  194. 

3  The  Immigration  Commission  has  adopted  the  race  classification 
popularly  used  in  mill  towns  and  mining  camps.  This  classification  is 
thus  explained  by  Mr.  Fitch:  "By  the  Eastern  European  immigration 
the  labor  force  has  been  cleft  horizontally  into  two  great  divisions. 
The  upper  stratum  includes  what  is  known  in  mill  parlance  as  the 
'English-speaking  men';  the  lower  contains  the  'Hunkies'  or  'Ginnies.' 
Or,  if  you  prefer,  the  former  are  the  'white  men,'  the  latter  the  'for- 
eigners.' An  'English-speaking'  man  may  be  neither  native  Ameri- 
can, nor  English,  nor  Irish.  He  may  be  one  of  these,  or  he  may  be 
German,  Scandinavian,  or  Dutch.  It  is  sufficient  if  the  land  of  his 
birth  be  somewhere  west  of  the  Russian^  Empire  or  north  of  Austria- 
Hungary.  A  'Hunky'  is  not  necessarily  a  Hungarian.  He  may 
belong  to  any  of  the  Slavic  races.  'Ginny'  seems  to  include  all  the 
'  Hunkies '  with  the  Italians  thrown  in." — The  Pittsburgh  Survey:  The 
Steel  Workers,  pp.  147-148. 


Racial  Stratification  165 

would  have  been,  had  the  rate  of  expansion  during  that 
decade  been  as  slow  as  in  1880-1890.  Of  the  total  number 
employed  by  Concern  No.  I,  8728  were  Americans  or  older 
immigrants;  the  others  belonged  to  the  new  immigrant 
races.  Had  the  concern  progressed  at  the  1880-1890  rate, 
the  force  would  have  been  increased  by  one  fourth,  approxi- 
mately to  11,000.  Only  one  half  of  this  number,  i.  e., 
5500,  could  have  been  given  skilled  employment,  while  the 
other  2304  of  the  7804  English-speaking  workmen  who 
were  so  employed  in  1907  would  have  had  to  content 
themselves  with  unskilled  work.  In  other  words,  a  slower 
expansion  of  the  industry  recommended  by  the  Immigration 
Commission1  would  have  deprived  more  than  thirty  per 
cent  of  the  "English-speaking"  workmen  of  opportunities 
for  advancement.  Their  standard  of  living  would  neces- 
sarily have  remained  that  of  unskilled  laborers.  It  is  only 
because  the  new  immigration  has  furnished  the  class  of 
unskilled  laborers  that  the  native  workmen  and  older 
immigrants  have  been  raised  to  the  plane  of  an  aristocracy 
of  labor.  This  evolution  must  not  be  lost  sight  of  in  the 
discussion  of  "racial  displacement." 

That  the  statistics  of  iron  and  steel  workers  show  an 
increase  of  49,000  native-born  of  native  parentage  from 
1890  to  1900,  does  not  mean  that  the  same  individuals  were 
employed  in  1900  as  ten  years  before.  Some  surely  have 
advanced  on  the  scale  of  occupations  and  others  succeeded 
them  in  the  mills,  still  the  figures  do  not  disclose  the  change 
of  individuals.  But  when  English-speaking  workers  of 
foreign  birth  are  classified  separately,  the  shifting  of  a 
number  of  Englishmen,  Welshmen,  and  Irishmen  to  other, 
more  remunerative  pursuits,  will  manifest  itself  in  a  corre- 
sponding reduction  of  their  numbers  employed  in  the  iron 
and  steel  industry,  unless  there  have  been  new  immigrants 
of  the  same  nationalities  to  take  their  places.  This  may  be 
observed  in  many  industries.  It  has  been  shown  that 
actual  displacement  of  native-  by  foreign-born  wage-earners 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  p.  45. 


166 


Immigration  and  Labor 


is  exceptional  and  negligible.  But  there  has  been  a  decrea & 
of  the  number  of  English,  Welsh,  and  Irish  workers  in  certain 
occupations,  simultaneously  with  an  increase  of  the  number 
of  recent  immigrants  and  native  American  workers  in  the 
same  occupations.  Upon  a  superficial  glance  this  coinci- 
dence  might  be  interpreted  as  the  forcing  out  of  Amer» 
icanized  workers  by  immigrants  from  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europe  with  a  lower  standard  of  living.  Such 
an  interpretation  would  not  harmonize  with  the  fact 
that  new  native  workers  of  native  parentage,  presum- 
ably with  as  high  a  standard  of  living  as  the  Irish,  have 
entered  the  industry  in  large  numbers.  A  comparative 
study  of  the  distribution  of  the  foreign-born  workers  by 
country  of  birth  and  occupation  will  bring  out  the  real 
tendencies  of  the  industrial  readjustment  produced  by 
immigration. 

We  find  in  the  first  place,  that  the  total  number  of 
English,  Welsh,  Irish,  and  German  male  breadwinners 
in  the  United  States  decreased  from  1890  to  1900  as 
follows: 


TABLE  35. 

NUMBER  OF  ENGLISH,  WELSH,  IRISH,  AND  GERMAN  MALE  BREADWINNERS 

(THOUSANDS),  1890  and  1900. x 


Nationality 

Number 

Decrease  1890-1900 

1890 

1900 

Number 

Per  cent 

English  and  Welsh.  .  . 
Irish  

487 
805 
1338 

439 
7M 
1276 

48 

91 

62 

9-9 
II-3 
4.6 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  number  of  foreign-born 
can  increase  only  by  immigration,  since  their  children  born 
in  this  country  are  classified  as  native.  Had  there  been  no 
immigration,  the  four  nationalities  named  should  have  lost 

1  See  Appendix,  Table  XI. 


Racial  Stratification  167 

by  death  from  1890  to  1900  about  20  per  cent  of  their 
numbers.1  The  actual  per  cent  of  decrease  indicates 
that  the  net  immigration  of  the  English  and  Welsh, 
Irish,  and  Germans  must  have  been  equal  respectively 
to  about  10  per  cent,  9  per  cent,  and  15  per  cent  of 
their  numbers  in  1890.  In  other  words,  there  was  no 
" displacement"  of  those  nationalities  by  the  races  of 
the  new  immigration. 

In  the  next  place,  the  reduction  in  numbers  affected  only 
certain  occupations,  while  others  showed  an  increase. 
Among  the  English  and  Welsh,  the  latter  class  comprised 
the  following  occupations:  manufacturers,  with  an  increase 
of  5000;  agents  and  salesmen,  with  an  increase  of  3900; 
and  professional  men,  with  an  increase  of  2500.  All  other 
occupations  showed  a  decrease;  the  greatest  numerical 
decrease  was  found  among  the  farmers,  viz.  14,500  men, 
or  20  per  cent,  which  was  somewhat  in  excess  of  the 
death  roll  for  the  ten-year  period.2  Apparently,  no 
new  farmers  came  from  England  and  Wales  to  fill  the 
places  of  their  countrymen  who  were  carried  off  by  death. 
This  fact,  obviously,  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  "new 
immigration,"  since  the  "undesirable  aliens  from  South- 
ern and  Eastern  Europe"  kept  away  from  the  farming 
sections  and  left  the  field  open  for  English  and  Welsh 
immigrants. 

The  tendency  characterizing  the  readjustment  which 
took  place  in  the  occupational  field  is  brought  out  in  the 
following  comparative  statement  of  selected  occupations 
which  exhibited  a  marked  divergence,  one  way  or  the  other, 
between  the  percentage  of  decrease  of  the  number  employed 
and  the  occupational  death-rate : 

1  The  annual  death-rate  among  the  foreign-born,  according  to  the 
census  of  1900,  varied  from  19  to  20.6  per  1000. — XII.  Census,  Vital 
Statistics,  Part  I.,  p.  xc. 

a  The  annual  death-rate  for  farmers  and  farm  laborers  according  to 
the  XII.  Census  was  17.6  per  1000.— XII.  Census,  Vital  Statistics,  Part 
I.,  p.  209. 


168 


Immigration  and  Labor 


TABLE  36. 

SHIFTING  OF  ENGLISH   AND  WELSH   MALE   BREADWINNERS   IN    SELECTED 
OCCUPATIONS,  1 890-1900. » 


Selected  occupations. 

Per  cent  ratio  to  total  engaged  in  each 
occupation. 

Aggregate 
decrease 

Loss  by 
death 

Net  accretion  (+) 
ordefection(—  ) 

Bookkeepers,  accountants,  and 

-0.6 

-8.3 

-2.8 

-17.6 

—20.8 

-39.5 

-13.6 
—  16.4 

—  io.5a 
-8.8 
-9.6 
-H.8 

+  13.0 

+8.1 

+77 
-8.8 

—  II.2 
-277 

Retail  merchants  

Machinists  and  blacksmiths  

Textile  mill  operatives  

Miners  and  quarrymen  

Tailors  

The  preceding  table  indicates  that  while  the  English 
and  Welsh  were  leaving  the  mines,  the  textile  mills, 
and  the  tailor  shops,  their  numbers  were  increasing  in 
some  of  the  better  paid  skilled  trades  and  in  mercantile 
pursuits. 

The  tendency  among  the  Irish  was  substantially  the  same 
as  among  the  English  and  Welsh.  There  were  5000  more 
manufacturers  in  1900  than  in  1890;  4700  more  agents  and 
salesmen,  and  500  more  professional  men.  All  other  speci- 
fied occupations  showed  a  decrease.  The  greatest  decrease, 
both  numerical  and  relative,  appeared  among  farmers,  viz., 
26,000,  or  28  per  cent,  which  was  much  in  excess  of  the 
loss  by  death.  It  is  evident  not  only  that  the  soil  had  no 
attraction  for  the  recent  Irish  immigrants,  but  that  it  could 
not  hold  the  older  Irish  farmers  who  must  have  given  up 
farming  for  other  pursuits.  The  direction  in  which  the 
Irish  shifted  within  non-agricultural  pursuits  is  indicated 
in  Table  37  next  below: 

1  See  Appendix,  Table  XI. 

'The  death-rate  for  1900  among  machinists  was  10.5  and  among 
blacksmiths  18.3  per  1000.  (Vital  Statistics,  loc.  tit.)  In  order  to 
make  the  estimates  in  this  table  more  conservative,  the  lower  rate  has 
been  selected. 


Racial  Stratification 


169 


TABLE  37. 

SHIFTING  OF  IRISH  MALE  BREADWINNERS  IN  SELBCTBD~OCCUPATIONS, 
1890-1900.* 


Selected  occupations 

Per  cent  ratio  to  total  engaged  in  each 
occupation 

Aggregate 
decrease 

Loss  by 
death 

Net  accretion  (  -f  ) 
or  defection(—  ) 

Bookkeepers,  accountants,  and 
clerks  

0.0 
-2.3 
-10.3 
-I4-5 

—  18.0 
-25.5 
-34-5 

-13.6 
-lo.s1 
—  17.0' 
—  10.8 
-9.6 
-8.8 
-II.8 

+  I3-6 

+8.2 

4-6.7 

=34 

-157 
-22.7 

Machinists  and  blacksmiths  .  . 

Building  trades  

Steam  railroad  employees  

Miners  and  quanymen  

Textile  mill  operatives  

Tailors  

Simultaneously  with  the  movement  of  the  Irish  from  the 
mines,  the  textile  mills,  the  tailor  shops  and,  presumably, 
from  the  lower  grades  of  the  railroad  service,  their  number 
increased  in  the  skilled  trades  and  in  clerical  pursuits. 

The  occupational  changes  among  the  Germans  display 
the  same  tendencies  as  have  been  traced  among  the  English- 
speaking  races,  with  some  variation  of  detail.  The  census 
returns  for  1900  record  an  increase  since  1890  in  the  follow- 
ing occupations :  manufacturers,  7000 ;  agents  and  salesmen, 
1 1 ,000;  professional  men,  2000 ;  machinists  and  blacksmiths, 
3000.  City  laborers,  farm  laborers,  and  all  other  specified 
occupations  show  a  numerical  decrease.  In  some  of  the 
latter,  however,  the  loss  by  death  was  partly  offset  by 
accretions  from  the  same  nationality,  while  in  others  actual 
defections  added  to  the  natural  decrease  by  death.  The 
comparative  statistics  for  both  classes  of  occupations  are 
presented  in  the  following  table: 

1  See  footnotes  to  Table  36. 

2  The  death-rate  for  masons  in  1900  was  19.9  per  1000;  for  carpenters 
and  joiners  17.2;  for  plasterers  and  whitewashes  17.0.     (Vital  Statis- 
tics, loc.  cit.) 


170 


Immigration  and  Labor 


TABLE  38. 

SHIFTING  OF  GERMAN  MALE  BREADWINNERS  IN  SELECTED  OCCUPATIONS 
1 890-1 900. x 


Selected  occupations 

Per  cent  ratio  to  total  engaged  in  each 
occupation 

Aggregate 
decrease 

Loss  by 
death 

Net  accretion(+) 
or  defection  (  -  ) 

Farmers  

-6.7 

~4-5 
-12.5 
—  i.o 

—  22.O 
-22.6 

-17.6 
—  16.4 
-17.0 
-9.6 
—  n.o 
-  8.8 

+  10.9 
+  II.9 

+4-5 
+8.6 

—  IO.2 
-13.8 

Building  trades  

Miners  and  quarrymen  

Tailors  

Textile  mill  operatives  

Unlike  the  English,  Welsh,  and  Irish,  the  Germans,  during 
the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century,  show  accretions 
among  the  farmers,  on  the  one  hand,  and  among  the  miners 
and  quarrymen,  on  the  other.  Defections  from  textile  mills 
and  tailor  shops  are  paralleled  by  increases  among  retail 
merchants  and  in  the  building  trades. 

The  ultimate  effect  of  immigration  from  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europe  upon  the  readjustment  of  the  various  races 
of  foreign-born  breadwinners  on  the  scale  of  occupations 
appears  from  the  table  on  page  171. 

The  earlier  immigrants  have  worked  their  way  upward, 
leaving  the  coarse  grades  of  labor  to  later  immigrants  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  It  will  be  observed  that 
the  natives  of  Austria-Hungary  furnish  a  strikingly  high 
proportion  of  mine,  mill,  and  factory  workers  compared  with 
the  Germans  and  Irish.  The  Poles  and  Italians  furnish  a 
proportion  of  common  laborers  higher  than  the  Irish  and 
much  higher  than  the  Germans  and  the  British.  On  the 
other  hand,  one  fifth  of  the  Germans  and  Swedes  are  farmers, 
whereas  the  percentage  of  farmers  among  the  natives  of 
Poland  and  Austria  is  very  small,  and  among  the  Hun- 
garians and  Italians  it  is  negligible.  The  races  of  the  "old 

1  See  footnotes  to  Table  36. 


Racial  Stratification 


171 


immigration "  likewise  show  higher  percentages  of  skilled 
mechanics  and  of  persons  engaged  in  business  and  the 
professions. 

TABLE  39. 

PRINCIPAL   NATIONALITIES   OF  MALE    BREADWINNERS  CLASSIFIED  BY 
OCCUPATION  GROUPS  (PER  CENT  ),  1900. l 


Nationality 

Farmers, 
planters,  and 
overseers 

Business,  pro- 
fessional and 
clerical  pur- 
suits* 

Skilled 
trades* 

Mine,  mill, 
and  factory 
workers* 

Laborers 
(not  on  farms) 

a 

1 

o 

3 

1 

Scotch.   . 

12  7 

18  7 

16  5 

English  and 
Welsh... 
Irish  .  .  . 

I3.I 

Q  d. 

M.O./ 
177 

12  I 

i*Vd 

13-2 

Q  1 

J3-4 
18.0 

Q  7 

•7 
6.4 

33-° 
31-6 

7Q   ~ 

IOO 

Germans  

2O  7 

re  -i 

y-o 
iii 

8.7 

ft  Q 

22.3 

TO  2 

30.2 

.je  a 

Swedes  

2O.Q 

7.7 

I  -I   C 

u.y 
IO  Q 

12  8 

35-° 
•*d  2 

IOO 

Poles  . 

c  7 

8  7 

5T 

21  2 

2Q  I 

28  2 

IOO 

Italians  .  . 

1.6 

10  2 

•* 

4<7 

••£,}.•<: 
I/I  ^ 

^y.i 

•3-7   2 

<je  a 

IOO 

Austrians  .... 
Hungarians.  . 

?:1 

10.8 

8.4 

•z 

4.6 

3-0 

1'+-0 
31-7 
40.7 

&s 

22.3 

OO'° 

28.9 

24.0 

IOO 
IOO 

To  throw  the  social  gradation  among  the  various  nation- 
alities more  into  relief,  all  specified  occupations  of  the 
preceding  table  are  combined  in  Table  40  under  two  heads: 
(i)  higher  grade,  comprising  skilled  mechanics,  business  and 
professional  men  and  farmers,  and  (2)  lower  grade,  compris- 
ing mine,  mill,  and  factory  workers  and  unskilled  laborers 
in  general.  Nearly  one  half  of  all  the  British,  German,  and 
Swedish  immigrants  are  farmers,  skilled  mechanics,  pro- 
fessional and  business  men ;  less  than  one  fourth  are  em- 
ployed in  the  coarser  grades  of  labor.  Among  the  races 
of  the  old  immigration  the  proportion  is  reversed. 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  Table  A,  pp.  821-829. 

'Include:  Saloonkeepers  and  bartenders;  agents;  bookkeepers  and 
accountants;  clerks  and  copyists;  merchants  and  dealers  (not  wholesale); 
salesmen;  manufacturers  and  officials,  etc.;  and  professional  service. 

3  Include:  Building  trades;  blacksmiths;  machinists;  printers,  litho- 
-.Jraphers,  and  pressmen,  and  tobacco  and  cigar  factory  operatives. 

*  Include:  Iron  and  steel  workers;  miners  and  quarrymen;  saw-  and 
planing-mill  employees;  tailors;  and  textile  mill  operatives.. 


172 


Immigration  and  Labor 


TABLE  40. 

PER  CENT  DISTRIBUTION  OF  FOREIGN-BORN  MALE  BREAD-WINNERS 
ACCORDING  TO  NATIONALITY  AND  GRADE  OF  OCCUPATION,  IQOO 


Nationality  (as  determined  by  country  of  birth) 

Higher-grade 

Lower-grade 

Scotch  

47   O 

TQ    T 

German  

A"J     I 

17    I 

English  and  Welsh  

A  A     O 

24.   4. 

Swedes  

42    I 

2\   7 

Irish  

•IQ   8 

•71      T 

Austrian  

Ow- 

20.  6 

CQ     ^ 

Polish  

IQ.  c 

C2    -I 

Italian  

16.5 

47   7 

Hungarian  

I^.O 

•t/  •  / 
62.1 

A  comparison  of  the  Scotch  with  other  English-speaking 
immigrants  throws  a  new  light  upon  the  subject  of  ''racial 
displacement."  Judged  by  occupational  standards,  the 
Scotch  stand  higher  than  other  immigrants  from  the  British 
Isles.  And  yet,  while  the  English,  Welsh,  and  Irish  in  the 
United  States  decreased  in  number  from  1890  to  1900,  the 
Scotch  showed  an  increase  of  10  per  cent,  which  was 
equivalent  to  a  net  immigration  of  about  30  per  cent.  In- 
creased numbers  in  the  principal  occupations  are  the  rule 
among  the  Scotch  during  that  decade,  decreases  the  excep- 
tion. Even  common  laborers  show  an  increase.1  But 


« Sec  Appendix,  Table  XI. 

In  the  census  returns  for  1890  the  distinction  between  agricultural 
laborers  and  other  laborers  in  agricultural  districts  was  not  strictly 
drawn.  For  this  reason  comparisons  for  each  class  taken  separately 
are  not  reliable  when  the  differences  are  close.  The  combined  number 
of  city  laborers  and  farm  laborers  among  the  Scotch  was  14,300  in  1890 
and  14,500  in  1900.  The  only  two  occupations  which  show  a  numerical 
decrease  in  excess  of  the  probable  loss  by  death  are  miners  and  textile 
mill  operatives.  The  miners  showed  an  aggregate  decrease  of  2100 
men,  which  was  equivalent  to  17.8  per  cent,  as  against  a  death-rate  of 
9.6  per  cent;  among  the  textile  mill  operatives  the  corresponding  per- 
centages were  respectively  23.4  per  cent  and  8.8  per  cent.  The  number 
of  tailors  decreased  from  noo  to  1000,  which  approximately  corre- 
sponds to  the  death-rate  among  tailors. 


Racial  Stratification  173 

these  decreases  were  amply  compensated  by  increases  in 
other  occupations.  These  facts  command  attention.  The 
Scotchman's  "progress  toward  assimilation"  is  not  ques- 
tioned. It  is  not  claimed  that  his  standard  of  living  is 
lower  than  the  Irish,  or  the  English;  nor  has  "ready  ac- 
ceptance of  a  low  wage,"  or  "willingness  to  accept 
indefinitely  without  protest  certain  conditions  of  em- 
ployment," been  discovered  among  his  "general  char- 
acteristics."1 The  increase  of  the  Scotch  in  this  country, 
contemporaneous  with  a  decrease  of  the  English  and  Irish, 
warrants  the  supposition  that  the  decline  of  emigration  from 
England  and  Ireland  may  be  the  effect  of  changed  conditions 
in  those  countries  rather  than  in  the  United  States.  This 
subject  will  be  more  fully  treated  in  a  subsequent  chapter. 

As  the  latest  available  figures  for  the  whole  country  date 
back  to  1900,  the  question  arises  whether  the  relations 
disclosed  by  them  have  not  been  materially  modified  by  the 
heavy  immigration  of  the  first  decade  of  the  present  century. 
A  partial  view  of  its  effects,  restricted  to  the  first  half  of 
that  period  and  to  one  industrial  State  with  a  large  foreign- 
born  population,  can  be  gained  from  a  comparison  of  the 
results  of  the  Massachusetts  census  of  1905  with  those  of  the 
United  States  census  of  1900.  According  to  the  changes 
which  took  place  in  the  interval,  all  classes  of  manual  labor 
and  clerical  occupations  fall  into  five  groups: 

I.  Occupations  in  which  the  increased  demand  for  labor 
manifested  itself  in  a  general  increase  of  native,  as  well 
as  foreign-born  breadwinners. 

II.  Specified  occupations  in  which  the  demand  for  labor 
decreased,  reducing  both  the  native  and  the  foreign-born 
force. 

III.  Laborers,  not  specified. 

IV.  Occupations  in  which  native  workers  were  displaced 
by  immigrants. 

V.  Occupations    in    which  foreign-bora  workers  were 
displaced  by  native-born. 

1  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.t  pp.  195-196. 


174 


Immigration  and  Labor 


Laborers  have  been  segregated  into  a  separate  group  for 
the  reason  that  an  increase  or  decrease  among  them  is 
likely  to  be  affected  by  a  difference  in  the  method  of  classi- 
fication as  much  as  by  real  economic  changes.  The  com- 
parative importance  of  these  five  groups  appears  from  Table 
41.  The  Massachusetts  census  draws  no  distinction 
between  native-born  of  native  and  of  foreign  parentage. 
On  the  whole,  native  breadwinners  show  a  greater  increase 
than  foreign-born. 

TABLE  41. 

INCREASE   (+)  AND  DECREASE   (  — )  OF  THE  NUMBER  OF  BREADWINNERS 
IN  MASSACHUSETTS  CLASSIFIED  BY  SEX,  NATIVITY,  AND  OCCUPATION 

GROUPS  (THOUSANDS),  1 900-1905. x 


Nativity  and  Sex 

Occupati 

:>n  groups 

I 

II 

III 

IV 

V 

Total 

Both  Sexes: 
Native 
Foreign-born 

+79-9 

+57-3 

-I7-3 

-5-8 

-7.7 
—  II.  I 

-2.8 

+3-9 

+  1.0 

-0.4 

+53-1 
+43-9 

Total 
Male: 
Native 
Foreign-born 

+  137-2 

+48.9 

+4I-5 

-23.1 

-12.8 

-3-1 

-18.8 

-7.7 
—  II.  I 

+  1.1 

-2.7 
+3-8 

+0.6 

+0.5 
-0.4 

+97.0 

+26.2 
+30-7 

Total 

Female: 
Native 

+90.4 
-{-31.0 

-15-9 

—4.5 

-18.8 

+  1.1 
—O.I 

+0.1 

+0.5 

+56.9 
+26.9 

Foreign-born 

+  15-8 

-2.7 

+0.1 

—  o.o 

+  13-2 

Total 

+46.8 

—  7.2 

+O.O 

+0.5 

+40.1 

The  increase  of  the  native-born  is  greatest  where  the 
increase  of  the  foreign-born  is  greatest.  On  the  contrary 
a  substantial  decrease  of  native-born  breadwinners  is  found 
in  the  second  group  of  occupations  where  the  number  of 

1  Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  Table  34,  pp.  154 /.,  and  Table  41, 
pp.  300-305.  Census  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts,  1905, 
vol.  ii.,  Occupations,  Table  I.,  pp.  9-117. 


Racial  Stratification 


foreign-born  likewise  shows  a  large  decrease.  The  gains  of 
the  foreign-born  at  the  expense  of  the  native  and  vice-versa 
are  insignificant.  The  decrease  of  native  breadwinners  in 
all  occupations  aggregated  27,800  persons,  but  it  was  offset 
by  a  net  increase  of  80,900  in  all  other  classes  of  manual 
labor  and  clerical  occupations,  that  is  to  say  the  loss  of  one 
position  was  compensated  by  the  gain  of  three.  No  account 
is  taken  here  of  the  increase  of  native-born  breadwinners  in 
business  and  professional  service. 

As  stated  above,  it  is  uncertain  whether  the  decrease  of 
the  number  of  laborers  was  due  to  industrial  changes  or  to 
the  whims  of  statistical  classification.  The  details  for  all 
other  occupations  showing  a  decrease  of  the  number  of 
native  breadwinners  are  given  in  Table  42. 

TABLE  42. 

SPECIFIED  OCCUPATIONS  IN  MASSACHUSETTS    WITH  A  DECREASING  NUM- 
BER OF  NATIVE  BREADWINNERS,  CLASSIFIED  BY  SEX  AND  NATIVITY, 
1 900-1 905.  * 


Occupations 

Decrease 
(Thousands) 

Occupations 

Decrease 
(Thou- 
sands) 

GROUP  II 

Native 

Foreign- 
born 

GROUP  IV 

NATIVE 

Males: 
Agricultural  laborers.  .  . 
Butchers  

2.5 

li 

2.2 
I.O 

3.0 

12.8 

1.8 
I.S 

1.2 

4-5 

.3 
.1 
•4 

I.O 
.2 

I.I 
3-1 

1.5 
.9 

.2 

2.6 

Males. 
Hucksters  and  peddlers 
Boatmen  and  sailors  .  .  . 
Engineers  and  firemen  .  . 
Porters  and  helpers  
Tin  plate    ana    tinware 

.6 
•4 
•3 
•3 

.2 
.2 

'.6 

2.7 
I 

2.8 

Carpenters  and  joiners. 
Gold  and  silver  workers 
Packers  and  shippers  .  . 

All  others2 

Barbers  and  hairdressers 
Miners  and  quarrymen. 
All  other"3 

Total     

Females: 
Housekeepers  and 
stewardesses  

Total  

Females: 
Agricultural  laborers, 
hucksters.and  peddlers 

Servants  and  waitresses 

Total  

Both  sexes  

17-3 

5.7 

Both  sexes  

1  See  footnote  to  Table  41. 

*  Includes  bakers,  blacksmiths,  brick  and  "tile  makers,  confectioners, 
coopers,  gunsmiths,  locksmiths  and  bell  hangers,  harness  and  saddle 


176  Immigration  and  Labor 

As  appears  from  the  preceding  table,  the  only  possible 
4 'displacement"  of  native-  by  foreign-born  did  not  exceed 
2800  breadwinners  in  five  years,  which  was  less  than  3  per 
cent  of  the  increase  of  native-born  in  all  occupations 
exclusive  of  business  and  professional  service.  The  total 
number  of  immigrant  breadwinners  who  gave  Massachusetts 
as  their  destination  in  1901-1905  reached  220,000  persons 
of  both  sexes. x  Assuming  that  2800  native  hucksters  and 
peddlers,  boatmen,  and  sailors,  etc.,  were  virtually  dis- 
placed by  the  immigrants,  we  find  that  the  measure  of 
"displacement"  was  equal  to  one  native  for  every  seventy- 
eight  immigrants. 

These  results  disclose  no  material  change  in  the  racial 
make-up  of  the  industrial  forces  during  the  first  five  years 
of  the  present  century;  what  was  true  in  1900  remained  so  as 
late  as  1905.  The  immigrants  did  not  "crowd"  the  native 
wage-earners,  but  were  absorbed  in  those  occupations  where 
native  workers  found  employment  in  increasing  numbers. 
Actual  "displacement"  was  a  negligible  quantity. 

makers  and  repairers,  hostlers,  marble  and  stone  cutters,  masons  (brick 
and  stone),  meat  and  fruit  canners,  packers,  etc.,  millers,  shirt,  collar 
and  cuff  makers,  stewards,  and  wheelwrights. 

3  Includes  brassworkers,  cabinet  makers,  candle,  soap,  and  tallow 
makers,  copper  workers,  engravers,  paper  hangers,  rope  and  cordage 
factory  operatives,  sail,  awning,  and  tent  makers,  tobacco  and  cigar 
operatives,  and  upholsterers. 

1  Annual  Reports  of  the  Commissioner-General  of  Immigration:  1901, 
p.  17,  Table  VIII.;  1902,  p.  29,  Table  IX.;  1903,  p.  32,  Table  IX.;  1904, 
p.  30,  Table  IX.;  1905,  p.  34,  Table  IX. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

EMIGRATION  FROM  NORTHERN  AND  WESTERN  EUROPE 

A.    Introductory 

HTHE  great  influx  of  Italian,  Slav,  and  Jewish  immigrants 
1  since  1890  coincides  with  a  decrease  of  immigration 
from  Northern  and  Western  Europe.  This  coincidence  has 
been  generally  accepted  as  proof  that  immigration  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  has  checked  the  current  of 
"more  desirable*'  immigration  from  Northern  and  Western 
Europe.  This  assertion  has  been  clothed  in  the  scientific 
garb  of  "the  Gresham  law  of  immigration";  bad  immigra- 
tion, it  is  said,  tends  to  drive  out  good  immigration.  The 
cum  hoc,  ergo  propter  hoc  method  of  reasoning  has  scarcely 
ever  appeared  so  undisguised  as  in  this  newly  discovered 
"law."  No  attempt  has  been  made  to  inquire  into  the 
conditions  of  the  countries  from  which  the  "old  immigra- 
tion" was  drawn,  with  a  view  to  ascertaining,  if  possible, 
whether  there  were  any  causes  tending  to  check  emigration 
from  those  countries. 

It  has  been  shown  in  Chapter  TV.  that  in  the  long  run 
immigration  bears  an  almost  constant  relation  to  the  popu- 
lation of  the  United  States.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  the 
latter  increases  faster  than  the  population  of  Europe, 
especially  that  of  the  emigration  countries,  the  rate  of 
emigration  from  those  countries  must  increase  much  faster 
than  their  population  in  order  to  supply  the  industries  of 
the  United  States  with  the  number  of  immigrants  they  can 
employ.  Yet  the  sources  of  emigration  are  not  unlimited. 


178  Immigration  and  Labor 

We  may  speak,  metaphorically,  of  a  Slav  "invasion,"  but 
such  figures  of  speech  merely  obscure  the  real  nature  of 
present-day  phenomena.  The  Norman  invaders  of  a  thou- 
sand years  ago  financed  their  expeditions  by  robbing  the 
peaceable  population  on  their  way.  All  they  needed  was 
the  spirit  of  adventure.  To-day  that  spirit  alone  will  not 
carry  their  descendants  across  the  ocean.  The  funds  for 
emigration  must  be  raised  by  the  emigrants  themselves,  or 
by  their  relatives  and  friends.  The  volume  of  emigration 
from  a  given  country  can,  therefore,  not  increase  beyond 
a  certain  limit  set  by  the  size  of  its  population.  When 
that  point  is  reached,  further  industrial  expansion  in  the 
United  States  must  draw  upon  the  labor  supply  of  other 
countries. 

During  the  ten-year  period  1881-1890  the  countries  of 
Northern  and  Western  Europe  furnished  72  per  cent  of 
the  total  immigration  to  the  United  States. x  This  period 
included  the  years  of  the  maximum  immigration  from 
Germany  and  the  Scandinavian  countries  and  of  the  great- 
est immigration  from  the  United  Kingdom  since  the  Irish 
famine  of  the  '40*8  of  the  past  century.  To  maintain  the 
same  ratio  to  the  total  immigration  of  the  past  decade, 
1901-1910,  the  countries  of  Northern  and  Western  Europe 
should  have  furnished  six  and  one  third  million  immigrants, 
i.  e.,  two  thirds  more  than  in  1881-1890.  In  order  to 
replace  the  immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe 
that  were  absorbed  by  the  industrial  expansion  of  the  past 
decade,  immigration  from  Northern  and  Western  Europe 
should  have  risen  117  per  cent  above  the  highest  water-mark 
reached  in  1881-1890. 

During  the  same  period  the  population  of  Ireland  de- 
creased 14  per  cent,  and  the  population  of  the  other  coun- 
tries of  Northern  and  Western  Europe  increased  from 
12.5  to  25.2  per  cent.2  Unless-we  allow  ourselves  to  be 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  Table  6,  pp.  61-63. 
*The  rates  of  increase  for  each  of  the  principal  countries  were  as 
follows: 


From  Northern  and  Western  Europe   179 

carried  away  by  imagination,  does  past  experience  warrant 
the  assumption  that  the  volume  of  immigration  from  those 
countries  could  have  so  far  outrun  the  increase  of  their 
population? 

The  total  immigration  from  Ireland  to  the  United  States 
for  1891-1900  was  equal  to  655,000  persons.1  An  increase 
of  117  per  cent  would  have  brought  up  this  figure  to  1,400,- 
ooo  (in  round  numbers),  i.  e.,  to  31  per  cent  of  the  popula- 
tion of  Ireland  at  the  census  of  1901.*  Such  a  rate  of 
depopulation  was  not  reached  even  in  the  years  of  the  Irish 
famine.3 

It  is  needless  to  repeat  this  calculation  for  Great  Britain 
and  the  Scandinavian  countries.  It  could  be  shown  by  a 
simple  computation  that,  in  order  to  replace  the  "new 
immigration"  emigration  from  those  countries  should  have 
risen  to  the  Irish  level.  Their  recent  economic  develop- 
ment, on  the  contrary,  as  will  next  be  shown,  has  had  a 
decided  tendency  to  check  emigration. 

Per  cent 

England  and  Wales 1881-1901  25.2 

Scotland 1881-1901  19.7 

Germany 1880-1900  24.6 

Denmark 1881-1900  244 

Norway 1875-1900  23.1 

Sweden 1880-1900  12.5 

(Computed  from  Statesman's  Year  Book,  1910,  pp.  13, 17;  and  British 
Statistical  Abstract  of  the  Principal  and  Other  Foreign  Countries,  No.  16, 
p.  8;  No.  35,  pp.  8,  10.) 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  Table  9,  pp.  89-92. 

2  Statistical  Abstract  for  the  United  Kingdom,  Table  114,  p.  361. 

3  The  lowest  numerical  and  relative  decrease  was  in  1871-1881,  viz., 
237,541  persons,  equivalent  to  4.4  per  cent.     The  total  emigration 
during  the  same  period  was  618,650.     The  natural  increase  of  popula- 
tion through  the  excess  of  births  over  deaths  was  accordingly  381,109 
persons,  i.  e.,  7  per  cent  of  the  population  at  the  census  of   1878. 
Allowing  the  same  rate  for  the  natural  increase  of  the  population  of 
Ireland  in  1901-1910,  we  obtain  24  per  cent  as  the  rate  of  decrease  in 
our  hypothetical  case,  as  against  19.8  per  cent  for  the  decade  1841-1851 
comprising  the  years  of  the  great  Irish  famine.     (The  figures  are  taken 
from  the  Statistical  Abstract  for  the  United  Kingdom,  No.  56,  p.  361, 
Table  114.) 


i8o 


Immigration  and  Labor 


B.     Germany 

In  the  closing  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  Germany 
ceased  to  be  a  country  of  emigration,  and  became  a  country 
of  immigration.  This  transformation  is  seen  from  the  fol- 
lowing table: 

TABLE  43. 

FOREIGN-BORN  POPULATION  OF  GERMANY,  NET  EMIGRATION  AND  NET 
IMMIGRATION  (THOUSANDS).1 


Foreign-born  population 

Year 

Increase 

Net  emigration  (—  ) 
or 

Number 

net  immigration  (  +) 

Total 

Annual 

average 

1880 

419 

1885 

433 

H 

3 

—980 

1890 

513 

80 

16 

-331 

1895 

... 

-449 

I9OO 

830 

317 

32 

+  94 

1905 

+  52 

The  increase  of  the  foreign-born  population  of  Germany 
during  the  years  1 900-1 907  averaged  79,000  annually. a  The 
annual  increase  of  the  foreign-born  population  of  the  United 
States  in  1870-1880  averaged  107,000,  and  in  1890-1900, 
109,000.  It  can  be  readily  seen  by  comparison  that  immi- 
gration to  Germany  is  growing  to  respectable  proportions. 
Two  thirds  of  the  foreign-born  male  breadwinners  are 
engaged  in  industrial  pursuits.  This  fact  alone  would 
furnish  a  sufficient  explanation  of  the  decline  of  German 
immigration  to  the  United  States;  when  there  is  a  call  for 
large  masses  of  immigrant  labor,  native  wage-earners  will 
find  a  good  market  at  home.3 

It  is  worthy  of  note,  on  the  other  hand,  that  Germany 

1  Die  Statisiik  in  Deutschland  nach  ihrem  heutigen  Stand,  I  Band 
(1911),  Dr.  Herrmann  Losch,  "  Wanderungsstatistik,"  p.  485.  Dr. 
Friedrich  Zahn, "  Deutschlands  wirtschaftliche  Entwickelung,"  Annalen 
des  Deutschen  Reichs,  1910,  p.  405. 

•  Ibid.  »  See  Appendix,  Table  XII. 


From  Northern  and  Western  Europe    181 

draws  her  immigrant  supply  from  the  same  sources  as  the 
United  States.  During  the  twenty  years  from  1880  to 
1900,  three  fourths  of  all  immigrants  to  Germany  came  from 
Austria-Hungary,  Russia,  and  Italy.1  Moreover,  the  Polish 
or  Italian  immigrant  to  the  United  States  comes  from  a 
higher  social  layer  than  his  countryman  who  goes  to  Ger- 
many, the  cost  of  passage  from  any  of  these  countries  to 
Germany  being  purely  nominal  in  comparison  with  the  cost 
of  a  transatlantic  trip.  It  is  evident  that  the  German 
wage-earner  cannot  avoid  coming  in  contact  with  the  immi- 
grant from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  by  staying  away 
from  the  United  States. 

In  addition  to  her  permanent  foreign-born  population 
Germany  has  a  large  floating  immigrant  labor  supply,  the 
so-called  "birds  of  passage,"  mostly  Poles  and  other 
Slavs  from  Russia  and  Galicia.  The  latest  official  data 
relating  to  migration  from  Galicia  to  Germany  place  the 
total  number  at  26,283  for  the  year  1899.  The  movement 
has  considerably  grown  since  that  time.  Austrian  statis- 
ticians variously  estimate  the  number  for  the  year  1905  at 
from  60,000  to  100,000. 3 

The  migration  of  working  men  and  women  from  Russian 
Poland  to  Germany  for  temporary  employment  has  grown 
in  the  following  proportion: 

TABLE  44* 

MIGRATION    OF     WORKERS    FROM    RUSSIAN    POLAND    TO    GERMANY    FOR 
TEMPORARY  EMPLOYMENT,  1890-1904.* 

Year  Thousands 

1890  17 

1900  119 

1901  140 

1902  136 

1903  142 

1904  138 

1  See  Appendix,  Table  XIII. 

*  Munchener  Volkswirtschaftliche  Studicn,  J.  von  Trzcinski,  "Russisch- 
Polnische  und  galizische  Wanderarbeiter  im  Grossherzogtum  Posen," 
p.  44. 

a  Reports  of  the  Warsaw  Statistical  Committee.    Bulletin  XXII.t  p.  2, 


1 82  Immigration  and  Labor 

About  95  per  cent  of  the  temporary  immigrants  from 
Russian  Poland  find  employment  as  agricultural  laborers.1 
But  the  demand  for  them  is  the  direct  result  of  the  move- 
ment of  Polish  peasants  from  the  rural  districts  of  Prussian 
Poland  to  the  great  industrial  cities  of  Germany  and 
particularly  to  the  coal  mining  districts. 

In  1898  there  were  57,000  foreign-speaking  mine  workers 
in  Western  Germany  out  of  a  total  of  198,000,  i.  e.,  28.7 
per  cent,  nearly  all  of  whom  were  Poles  from  Prussian 
Poland.2  According  to  the  latest  statistics  for  the  Ruhr 
district,  which  produces  one  half  of  Germany's  coal  output, 
the  number  of  Polish  miners  has  grown  to  100,000  out  of  a 
total  of  350,000. 3  Evidently,  there  must  have  been  some 
other  cause  than  reluctance  to  compete  with  Polish  immi- 
grants that  has  " operated  to  prevent  the  further  coming" 
of  German  miners  to  the  bituminous  regions  of  Pennsyl- 
vania,4 since  they  have  no  alternative  but  to  work  with 
Polish  immigrants  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

The  transformation  of  Germany  from  an  emigrant- 
furnishing  nation  to  a  country  of  immigration  is  the  direct 
result  of  her  recent  industrial  expansion.  Its  extent  can  be 
gauged  by  the  comparative  growth  of  production  of  coal 
and  pig  iron  in  Germany  and  the  two  other  leading  indus- 
trial countries,  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain,  as 
represented  graphically  in  Diagrams  XIIs  and  XIII.6  In 
coal  mining  Germany  has,  in  recent  years,  outrun  Great 

Warsaw,  1906.  (In  Russian.)  General  Analysis  .of  the  Statistics  of 
Migration  of  Workers  for  Temporary  Employment,  etc.  By  K.  G. 
Vobly.  *  Ibid.,  p.  21. 

3  J.  Karski,  Die  Polnischen  Wanderarbeiter,  "Die  Neue  Zeit,"  1900- 
1901,  pp.  722,  723. 

3V.  Maisky:  "The  Tragedy  of  the  German  Coal  Miners,"  (in 
Russian)  Russkoye  Bogatstvo,  April,  1912,  pp.  35,  47. 

*  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  p.  427. 

s  Based  upon  the  Report  of  the  United  States  Geological  Survey, 
Production  of  Coal  in  1909,  p.  60. 

6  Figures  are  taken  from  The  Mineral  Industry,  1893,  P-  35 1;  1896, 
p.  334;  1900,  p.  395;  1910,  p.  381. 


DIAGRAM  xn. 


Per  cent  of 

increase  of 

(lie  production 

of  coal  in 

the 

United  States, 
Germany, 

and 

Great  Britain, 
1890-1909. 


5s*    ^ 


DIAGRAM  XIII. 


Production  of  pig  iron  in  Germany,  the  United  States,  and  the 
United  Kingdom,  1880-1910. 

183 


184  Immigration  and  Labor 

Britain.  The  production  of  pig  iron  in  Germany  increased, 
within  the  past  twenty  years,  much  faster  than  in  Great 
Britain;  the  German  rate  of  growth  was  not  far  behind  the 
American. 

Another  index  of  German  industrial  progress  is  furnished 
by  the  development  of  her  railway  system  and  freight 
traffic  since  1890.  Comparative  statistics  for  Germany 
and  the  United  States  are  given  in  Table  45. 


TABLE  45. 

COMPARATIVE   GROWTH   OF   RAILROAD    MILEAGE   AND  FREIGHT  TRAFFIC 
IN  GERMANY  AND   THE  UNITED   STATES,  1 890-1900. x 


Country 

Per  cent  IB 

crease 

Mileage  in  operation 

Ton  -miles  of  freight 

41.3 

n1?.? 

United  States  

46.7 

18-1.4 

The  full  import  of  the  preceding  figures  can  only  be 
realized  if  one  bears  in  mind  the  much  smaller  area  and  the 
greater  density  of  population  of  Germany,  compared  with 
the  United  States,  both  factors  reducing  the  distance  from 
mine  to  mill  and  from  mill  to  market. 

The  use  of  mechanical  power  in  the  industrial  establish- 
ments of  Germany  more  than  doubled  within  the  short 
space  of  twelve  years,  viz.,  from  3,400,000  in  1895  to 
8,800,000  in  1907." 


1  Computed  from  the  following  sources:  Dr.  Friedrich  Zahn,  "Deutsch- 
lands  wirtschaftliche  Entwickelung,"  Annalen  des  Deutschen  Reichs, 
1911,  No.  3-4,  p.  189;  Statistical  Abstract  of  the  United  States,  1910, 

P-  715. 

aZahn,  he.  cit.t  p.  175. 


,     From  Northern  and  Western  Europe    185 

The  effect  of  the  industrial  progress  of  Germany  upon 
the  labor  market  is  shown  in  the  comparative  increase 
of  the  number  of  breadwinners  engaged  in  trade  and 
manufactures  and  of  the  population  at  large,  as  shown 
in  Table  46  next  following: 


TABLE  46. 


PER  CENT  INCREASE  OF   THE   POPULATION  OF   GERMANY   AND    OF    THE 

NUMBER  OF   BREADWINNERS   IN   TRADE  AND  MANUFACTURES, 

1882-1907.' 


Period 

Population 

Breadwinners 

1882-1895 

H-5 

39-9 

1895-1907 

19.2 

397 

The  increased  demand  for  labor  in  the  industrial  estab- 
lishments of  Germany  resulted  in  a  substantial  increase 
of  the  rate  of  wages. 

"  The  rate  of  wages  has  risen  during  the  recent  past  .  .  . 
more  than  the  price  of  the  necessities  of  life,  showing  that 
the  German  workingman  has  shared  in  the  prosperity  of 
the  country. " a     It  is  admitted  by  the  German  trade-unions 
that  the  condition  of  labor   has   materially  improved.8 

1  Zahn,  loc.  cit.,  p.  164. 

3  Earl  Dean  Howard:  The  Cause  and  Extent  of  the  Recent  Industrial 
Progress  of  Germany,  p.  118. 

3  Zahn,  loc.  cit.,  p.  227.  If  an  opinion  coming  from  official  sources 
is  preferred,  the  following  quotation  from  a  recent  speech  by  Mr.  von 
Berlepsch,  former  Prussian  Minister  of  Commerce,  will  be  of  interest: 
"Slowly  and  by  little  steps  rises  the  well-being  of  the  general  body  of  the 
people;  and  no  small  number  of  those  classes  of  the  population  which 
thirty  years  ago  obtained  a  bare  subsistence  have  now  made  their  way 
into  a  middle  class  and  enjoy  a  fairly  adequate  income. " — Howard, 
loc.  cit.,  p,  181. 


1 86 


Immigration  and  Labor 


The  average  annual  earnings  upon  which  membership  dues 
to  the  trade-union  insurance  fund  were  figured  increased 
from  638  marks  in  1890  to  953  marks  in  1909,  i.  e.,  50  per 
cent.  The  upward  tendency  of  wages  is  not  confined  to  the 
skilled  trades,  but  has  affected  all  classes  of  labor.  Un- 
biased evidence  of  this  fact  is  furnished  by  the  statistics 
compiled  by  local  authorities  under  the  provisions  of  the 
sick-insurance  law,  and  showing  the  prevailing  rates  of 
wages  of  day  laborers  in  the  large  cities. x 

The  rate  of  increase  of  the  average  annual  earnings  of 
coal  miners  appears  from  the  following  table: 

TABLE  47. 

AVERAGE  ANNUAL   EARNINGS   IN   PRUSSIAN  COAL   MINES, 


District 

Number  of 
wage-earners 
(thousands) 
1910 

Annual  earnings,  marks 

1890 

1910 

Per  cent 
of  increase 

Upper  Silesia  

116 

28 

335 

22 

40 

67I 

735 
1,067 
878 
730 

964 

974 
1,382 

1,375 
1,089 

43-6 

32-5 
24.8 
56.6 
49.1 

Lower  Silesia  

Dortmund  

Aix-la-Chapelle  

Halle  

At  the  same  time  there  has  been  a  marked  reduction  in  the 
number  of  hours  of  work  per  day.3  Furthermore  "there  is 
also  less  changing  of  employment  and  less  non-employment 
in  Germany,"  than  in  the  United  States,  since,  "in  most 
cases  the  law  requires  at  least  a  two  weeks'  notice  before  the 
employee  can  be  discharged."4 

All  these  improvements  are  in  no  small  degree  due  to  the 
progress  of  organization  among  German  wage-earners, 
which  became  possible  only  after  the  repeal  of  the  anti- 
Socialist  law  on  October  i,  1890.^  Under  the  operation  of 

1  Howard,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  114-115.  Statistical  tables  on  the  subject  of 
wages  are  given  on  pp.  112-113.  _  •  a  Zahn,  loc.  cit.,  p.  228. 

3  Howard,  loc.  eit.,  p.  117.        v.  /    ^f  *  Ibid.,  pp.  126-127. 


From  Northern  and  Western  Europe    187 

that  law,  only  local  trade-unions,  without  national  affilia- 
tions, had  been  tolerated,  and  those,  only  so  long  as  they 
confined  themselves  to  mutual  benefit  and  educational 
objects;  by  executive  order  of  April  n,  1886,  strikes  of  any 
character  were  declared  to  be  "revolutionary  manifesta- 
tions." The  first  national  labor  convention  was  held  in 
1892.  It  was  not  until  January  i,  1900,  however,  that  all 
laws  restricting  the  right  of  federating  independent  local 
unions  were  unequivocally  repealed.1  Since  that  time 
the  membership  of  labor  organizations  has  progressed  by 
leaps  and  bounds,  leaving  behind  the  older  British  and 
American  trade-unions,  as  appears  from  the  following  table : 

TABLE  48. 

MEMBERSHIP  OF  TRADE-UNIONS  IN  GERMANY,  1 890-1900.* 

Year  (Thousands) 

1890 .  301 

National  unions: 

1900 932 

1901 935 

1902 1017 

1903 1191 

1904 W 

1905 1727 

1906 2129 

1907 2330 

1908 2203 

1909 2212 

1910 2435 

Total,  including  unaffiliated  local 
unions,  1910: 

Germany 2688 

United  States  and  Canada  (estimated)      262 5 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland 2427 

The  ratio  of  organized  workers  to  the  total  number  of 
wage-earners  enumerated  in  1907  was  estimated  at  28  per 
cent.3 

1  Handwdrterbuch  der  Staatswissenschaften,  vol.  iv.,  pp.  1147-1149. 

a  Statistische  Beilage  des  Correspondenz-Blatt  der  General-Commission 
der  Gewerkschaften  Deutschlands ,  1911,  No.  6,  pp.  161-163;  New  York 
Labor  Bulletin,  No.  48  (September,  1911),  P-  4*8.  The  membership 
for  the  United  States  and  Canada  seems  overestimated. 

a  Handwdrterbuch  der  Staatswissenschaften,  vol.  iv.,  p.  1175. 


188 


Immigration  and  Labor 


A  noteworthy  development  of  the  German  labor  move- 
ment is  the  progress  of  organization  among  female  wage- 
earners,  who  are,  as  a  rule,  unorganized  in  this  country. 
The  efforts  of  German  unions  among  the  women  were 
stimulated,  above  all  altruistic  considerations,  by  recogni- 
tion of  the  depressing  effect  of  the  competition  of  unorgan- 
ized female  labor  upon  the  wages  of  men.  The  extent  to 
which  the  women  have  responded  to  the  efforts  of  the 
unions  can  be  measured  by  the  following  figures: 

TABLE  49.  ] 

PROGRESS  OF  ORGANIZATION  AMONG  FEMALE  WAGE- EARNERS,  IN 
GERMANY,  1895-1910.* 


Year 

Number  of  organized  women 
(thousands) 

Per  cent  of  total  union 
membership 

1895 

7 

2.7 

1000 

23 

3-3 

1905 

74 

5-7 

1906 

119 

7-1 

1007 

137 

7.3 

1908 

138 

7.6 

1009 

134 

7-3 

1910 

162 

8.0 

The  assistance  rendered  by  German  unions  to  their 
members  can  be  measured  by  the  expenditures  of  the  Social- 
democratic  Gewerkschaften,  i.  e.,  the  national  unions  affili- 
ated with  the  largest  and  most  influential  of  the  German 
federations  of  labor.  The  figures  are  given  in  Table  50. 

The  progress  of  the  labor  movement  in  Germany  has 
directly  and  indirectly  stimulated  labor  legislation,  which 
has  resulted  in  a  material  improvement  of  the  condition 
of  labor: 

As  a  rule  [says  Dr.  Howard],  the  factories  are  kept  in  a  much  better 
condition,  and  have  more  arrangements  for  the  comfort  of  the  men, 


1  Statistische  Beilage  des  Correspondenz-Blatt  der  General-Commission 
der  Gewerkschaften  Deutschlands,  1911,  No.  6,  pp.  163,  168.' 


From  Northern  and  Western  Europe   189 


than  in  the  United  States.  This  is  the  general  opinion  of  writers  who 
compare  the  conditions  prevailing  in  the  two  countries,  and  it  seems 
to  be  confirmed  by  direct  observation.  The  factories  usually  have 
good  light  and  air,  are  clean  and  orderly.  The  sanitary  arrangements 
and  the  facilities  for  washing  and  changing  clothes  are  splendid.  Most 
of  the  factories  are  provided  with  lockers  for  the  men,  so  that  they 
need  not  leave  the  place  in  their  working  clothes.1 

i  TABLE  50. 

COMPARATIVE  SUMMARY  OF  THE  PRINCIPAL  EXPENSES  OF  THE  NATIONAL 

ORGANIZATIONS   AFFILIATED  WITH   THE  "  GENERAL  COMMISSION 

OF  THE   TRADE-UNIONS  OF  GERMANY,"    1895-1910. a 


Object 

Millions   of  marks 

1895 

I90O 

1910 

Strikes  ...               

0-3 
O.2 

0-5 

2.7 

0.5 

I.O 

20.4 
6.1 

11.2 

Sick   and   death    benefits    and    sundry 
benevolent  expenses  

Germany  was  the  first  nation  to  introduce  a  system  of 
workingmen's  insurance  under  the  control  of  the  govern- 
ment. "The  introduction  of  insurance  laws  protecting  the 
workingman  against  sickness  and  accidents,  and  promising 
him  a  pension  in  his  old  age,  has  had  a  tendency  to  decrease 
the  chances  of  misfortune  in  life. "  3 

In  1909  there  were  insured  under  the  provisions  of  that 
law  over  13,000,000  persons  against  sickness,  over  15,000,000 
against  old  age  and  invalidity,  and  nearly  24,000,000 
persons  against  accident,  in  a  total  population  of  64,000,000 
of  whom  there  were  less  than  19,000,000  wage-earners.4 

The  expansion  of  industry  and  the  resulting  improvement 
of  the  condition  of  industrial  wage-earners  have  drawn  to 
the  cities  and  mining  sections  the  whole  natural  increase 
of  the  rural  population.5 

1  Howard,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  127-128. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  189.  3  Ibid.,  pp.  124, 131. 

<Zahn,  loc.  cit.,  Annalen  des  Deutschen  Reichs,  1911,  p.  232. 

s  At  the  foundation  of  the  German  Empire  in  1871,  its  rural  popula- 


190 


Immigration  and  Labor 


At  the  same  time,  German  agriculture,  stimulated  by 
the  increase  of  the  country's  population  and  fostered  by 
a  protective  tariff,  also  showed  substantial  progress,  as 
can  be  seen  from  Table  51  below.  As  a  result,  there  is  a 
scarcity  of  agricultural  laborers  during  the  busy  season, 
which  is  only  partially  relieved  by  the  immigration  of 
Polish  and  Russian  temporary  laborers.  Although  organi- 
zation among  agricultural  laborers  is  seriously  restricted 
by  law,  yet,  as  an  effect  of  economic  causes  alone,  the  wages 
of  agricultural  laborers  have  continually  advanced. x 

TABLE  51. 

AGRICULTURAL  PROGRESS  IN  GERMANY,  1895-1909. a 


Crop 

Total    yield 
Millions  of  tons 

Yield  per  hectar 
tons 

1895 

1909 

I89S 

1909 

Rye  

7-7 

I:§ 
3L8 

11.4 

3-8 

2'5 
46.7 

9.1 

1-3 
1.6 

i-7 
12.4 
1.6 

1.9 

2.1 
2.1 
I4.I 
2.1 

Wheat.  .  . 

Spring  barley 

Potatoes  

Oats  

The  combined  effect  of  all  these  causes  was  reflected  in 
the  rate  of  emigration  from  rural  districts.  Towards  the 
middle  of  the  past  century  the  growth  of  land  values  had 
made  the  primitive  methods  of  farming  unprofitable,  and 
necessitated  the  introduction  of  more  intensive  systems  of 
cultivation.  In  Prussian  Poland  the  change  was  somewhat 
retarded  by  its  general  economic  backwardness,  but  in  the 
'70*8  and  in  the  early  '8o's  it  drove  large  numbers  of  Polish 
peasants  to  the  United  States.  These  Poles  constituted  a 
large  element  of  the  German  immigration  to  the  United 
States  and  were  counted  in  our  immigration  statistics  as 

tion  constituted  64  per  cent  in  a  total  of  41,000,000;  at  the  census  of 
1900  the  total  population  numbered  56,000,000,  but  the  proportion  of 
rural  population  had  declined  to  46  per  cent. — Howard,  loc.  cit.,  p.  31. 

1  Howard,  loc.  cit.,  p.  68. 

*  Zahn,  loc.  cit.,  Annalen  des  Deutschen  Reichs,  1910,  p.  578. 


From  Northern  and  Western  Europe  191 

''Germans."1  But  the  rapid  development  of  German 
industry  within  the  last  twenty-five  years  opened  for  these 
peasants  new  opportunities  at  home.  This  fact,  coupled 
with  the  disappearance  of  cheap  lands  in  the  United  States, 
has  resulted  in  a  falling  off  in  the  emigration  of  farmers  and 
farm  laborers  to  the  United  States. 

As  a  general  rule,  industrial  progress  in  modern  times  has 
tended  to  eliminate  the  independent  artisan,  the  small 
trader,  and  the  small-scale  fanner  and  to  push  them  into 
the  ranks  of  wage-earners.  In  Germany,  however,  this  pro- 
cess has  been  checked  by  the  development  of  co-operation.2 
Its  recent  progress  can  be  seen  from  the  following  table: 

TABLE  52. 

CO-OPERATIVE    ASSOCIATIONS    IN    GERMANY,    1903-1908.3 


Year 

Number  of 
Associations 
(thousands) 

Membership 
(millions) 

Per  cent  ratio  to 
population 

1903 

21 

3-1 

54 

1904 

22 

34 

5-8 

1905 

24 

3-6 

6.2 

1906 

25 

3-8 

6-3 

1907 

26 

4.0 

6.7 

1908 

27 

4-3 

7.2 

The  general  improvement  of  the  living  conditions  of  the 
broad  masses,  which  characterizes  the  recent  economic  de- 
velopment of  Germany,  must  necessarily  have  affected  the 
rate  of  emigration  during  the  past  twenty  years.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  tide  of  German  emigration  in  the  early 
'8o's  was  swelled  by  political  oppression.  Under  the  ' '  minor 
state  of  siege, "  proclaimed  by  virtue  of  the  anti-Socialist 
law  of  1878,  all  labor  unions  were  "put  under  the  ban  alike 
with  the  political  organizations  of  the  Social- Democracy. 
Of  the  25  existing  unions  1 6  were  dissolved  by  the  govern- 

1  Trzcinski,  loc.  cit.t  pp.  3  and  128. 

3 Zahn:  Annalen  des  Deutschen  Reichs,  191 1,  No.  3-4,  p.  226. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  227. 


192 


Immigration  and  Labor 


ment,  the  others  disbanded  voluntarily."1  The  member- 
ship of  the  organizations  directly  affected  was  estimated  at 
50,000.  The  widespread  discontent  created  by  these  re- 
pressive measures  led  many  workingmen  to  seek  liberty 
in  the  United  States.  The  repeal  of  the  ' '  exceptional  laws  " 
in  1890  removed  the  political  stimulus  to  emigration. 

The  cumulative  effect  of  all  these  causes  upon  emigration 
from  Germany  can  be  learned  from  the  following  table. 

TABLE  53. 

ANNUAL     AVERAGE    IMMIGRATION     FROM    GERMANY     (THOUSANDS), 

1875-1910.' 


Occupation 

1875-1878 

1879  -1890 

1891-1898 

1899-1910 

Skilled  mechanics  

4.8 

1C.  I 

6.3 

II.  5 

Farmers  and  farm 
laborers  .                ... 

•5.7 

12.2 

A   A 

8.O* 

Laborers  

-1.4. 

2O.I 

8.1 

7.e 

.6 

2.6 

2.0 

7.-1 

All  other  miscellaneous  . 

3-3 

4-3 

2.2 

3-9 

Total  

15.8 

C4..-J 

2-i.q 

38.2 

In  1879-1890,  contemporaneously  with  the  operation  of 
the  exceptional  laws  of  1878,  the  average  annual  immigra- 
tion from  Germany  to  the  United  States  rose  244  per  cent 
above  the  average  level  of  the  preceding  four-year  period. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  average  for  the  twelve-year  period 
1899-1910  dropped  only  one  third  below  the  level  of  the 
preceding  period  of  equal  length,  1879-1890.  The  immi- 
gration of  skilled  mechanics  decreased  by  3600  annually, 

1  Handw orterbuch  der  Staatswissenschaften,  vol.  iv.,  p.  1146. 

9  Monthly  Summary  of  Commerce  and  Finance,  June,  1903,  pp. 
4408-4411.  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  i,  p.  100. 
Annual  Reports  of  the  Commissioner-General  of  Immigration:  1890-1900, 
Table  VII.;  1901-1904,  Table  IX.;  1905-1908,  Table  VIII.;  1900-1910, 
Table  X. 

a  Of  this  number  1 1 10  were  farmers  and  the  rest  farm  laborers. 


From  Northern  and  Western  Europe  193 

i.  e.t  by  about  one  fourth.  The  immigration  of  fanners  and 
farm  laborers  dropped  4200  annually,  *.  e.,  more  than  one 
third,  from  the  high  level  reached  in  1879-1890.  The 
decrease  of  the  immigration  of  agricultural  workers  doubt- 
less bears  some  relation  to  the  decline  in  the  demand  for 
agricultural  labor  and  the  increase  of  land  values  in  the 
United  States. 

In  order  to  determine  the  effect,  if  any,  of  immigration 
from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  upon  immigration  from 
Germany,  the  annual  average  immigration  of  unskilled 
laborers  must  be  considered.  The  line  of  demarkation 
between  farm  laborers  and  "laborers  not  specified"  was 
not  clearly  drawn  in  our  earlier  immigration  statistics. 
Moreover,  many  agricultural  laborers  come  to  the  United 
States  to  seek  industrial  employment.  If  both  classes  of 
laborers  are  merged  into  one,  and  an  allowance  is  made 
for  the  number  of  farmers  combined  with  farm  laborers 
prior  to  1899,*  the  immigration  of  unskilled  laborers  may 
be  estimated  for  1891-1898  at  11,400  persons  annually. 
In  1899-1910  this  average  rose  to  14,400.  At  the  same 
time  the  rate  of  immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe  rose  from  48  per  cent  of  the  total  immigration  for 
the  first  period,  to  72  per  cent  for  the  last.2  It  is  evident 
that  the  competition  of  the  Italian  and  Slav  unskilled  la- 
borer did  not  deter  the  German  unskilled  laborer  from  com- 
ing to  the  United  States.  On  the  whole,  the  average  annual 
immigration  from  Germany  during  the  period  1899-1910 
increased  by  14,300,  i.  e.,  60  per  cent  over  the  average  for 
1891-1898. 

1  The  average  number  of  farmers  for  the  period  1891-1898  was  es- 
timated at  1 100  annually,  the  same  as  recorded  by  immigration  statis- 
tics for  1899-1910,  although  the  combined  number  of  farmers  and  farm 
laborers  during  the  former  period  was  only  about  one  half  of  the  total 
for  the  latter.     In  this  manner  every  precaution  was  taken  against 
overrating  the  increase  of  immigration  of  unskilled  laborers  during  the 
last  period. 

2  Computed  from  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission ,  vol.  I, 
Table  6,  pp.  61-64. 


194  Immigration  and  Labor 

The  United  States  has  always  been  the  chief  destination 
of  the  bulk  of  German  emigrants.  Complete  data  regarding 
the  destination  of  German  emigrants  are  available  only 
since  1890.  The  figures  will  be  found  in  Table  54  next 
following,  with  the  rate  of  immigration  from  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europe  to  the  United  States  in  a  parallel  column. 
The  results  are  presented  graphically  in  Diagram  XIV. 

TABLE  54. 

EMIGRATION  FROM  GERMANY  TO  ALL  COUNTRIES   OUTSIDE   TEE   UNITED 
STATES,  1890-1904. x 


Year 

Number  of  emigrants  from 
Germany  to  countries 
outside  of  United 
States 

Immigration   from   Southern 
and  Eastern  Europe  to  the 
United  States,  per 
cent  of  total 

1890 

7338 

35-3 

1891 

7043 

41.2 

1892 
1893 

4533 
9428 

46.6 
44-3 

1894 

5062 

44.9 

1895 

4995 

42.1 

1896 

4817 

57-0 

1897 

56.8 

1898 

3658 

62.4 

1899 

4518 

68.0 

1900 
1901 

2161 

72.4 
73-6 

1902 

2887 

75-1 

1903 

2661 

72.1 

1904 

1899 

68.4 

The  preceding  table  and  Diagram  XIV  clearly  show  the 
absence  of  any  connection  between  emigration  from  Ger- 
many and  immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe 
to  the  United  States.  Emigration  from  Germany  to  other 
countries  was  highest  in  1890,  1891,  and  1893,  when  immi- 
gration from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  to  the  United 
States  varied  from  35.3  to  44.3  per  cent  of  the  total  immi- 
gration to  the  United  States.  Since  1893  emigration  from 

1  Vierteljahrshefte  zur  Statistik  des  Deutschen  Reichs,  1905.  Die 
iiberseeische  Auswanderung  im  Jahre  1904,  Part  I.,  p.  120,  Table  I. 
Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  i,  Table  6,  p.  61. 


DIAGRAM  XIV. 


£        S 


XT7.    Emigration  from  Germany  to  all  countries  outside  of  the  United  States 

and  per  cent  of  Southern  and  Eastern  European  immigration  to  the  total 

immigration  to  the  United  States,  1890-1904. 


19$ 


196 


Immigration  and  Labor 


Germany  to  other  countries  than  the  United  States  steadily 
declined,  while  immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe  to  the  United  States  advanced  from  44.3  to  75.1 
per  cent  of  the  total. 

It  is,  evidently,  not  because  living  conditions  in  the 
United  States  have  grown  worse,  but  because  living  con- 
ditions in  Germany  have  grown  better,  that  emigration 
from  Germany  to  all  countries  has  fallen  off. 

C.  The  Scandinavians 

Scandinavian  immigration  to  the  United  States  reached 
its  maximum  during  the  decade  1881-1890,  when  it  exceeded 
by  about  two  thirds  the  total  for  the  preceding  sixty  years.  x 
Yet  while  the  total  number  of  immigrants  of  both  sexes  and 
all  ages  in  1901-1910  fell  short  of  the  maximum  reached  in 
1881-1890,  the  number  of  breadwinners  showed  a  very 
substantial  increase,  as  appears  from  the  following  table: 

TABLE  55. 

SCANDINAVIAN  IMMIGRATION  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES, 


Breadwinners  » 

Period 

Total 
(thousands) 

Number 

Per    cent  ratio 

to  total 

(thousands) 

Scandinavian  immigration 

1881-1890 
1891-1900 

656 

372 

356 
24I 

it 

I90I-I9IO 

530 

429 

81 

1  The  total  number  admitted  up  to  1880  was  397,011,  the  total  for 
1881-1890  was  656,494.  Computed  from  Reports  of  the  Immigration 
Commission,  vol.  I,  Table  9,  pp.  66-96. 

a  Monthly  Summary  of  Commerce  and  Finance,  June,  1903,  pp. 
4408-441 1 ;  Report  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I ,  Tables  12-13. 
Annual  Reports  of  the  Commissioner-General  of  Immigration:  1899-1900, 
Table  VIII.;  1901-1904,  Table  IX.;  I9o5"-i9o8,  Table  VIII. ;  1909-1910, 
Table  X. 

»  All  immigrants  exclusive  of  dependents,  described  in  immigration 
statistics  as  "without  occupation  (mostly  women  and  children)." 


From  Northern  and  Western  Europe     197 

As  shown  by  the  figures,  the  number  of  Scandinavians 
coming  to  compete  in  the  American  labor  market  actually 
increased:  the  total  for  1901-1910  exceeded  by  20  per  cent 
that  for  1881-1890.  The  population  of  the  Scandinavian 
countries  increased  at  the  same  time  approximately  22 
per  cent. T  Emigration  kept  pace  with  population. 

The  only  observable  change  is  that,  whereas  the  earlier 
Scandinavian  immigration  was  mostly  of  a  family  type, 
among  the  recent  Scandinavian  immigrants  single  persons 
vastly  predominate;  in  1881-1890  there  were  46  dependents 
to  every  54  immigrant  breadwinners,  in  1901-1910  only 
19  to  81.  In  this  respect  the  Scandinavian  immigrants  of 
the  present  day  are  very  much  like  the  immigrants  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  The  cause  of  this  change 
in  the  matter  of  the  family  relations  of  the  Scandinavian 
immigrants  is  evidently  not  racial,  but  economic.  The  old 
Scandinavian  immigration  came  largely  to  settle  on  farms,* 
where  a  family  was  a  help,  while  the  new  Scandinavian 
immigration,  like  the  new  immigration  from  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europe,  comes  chiefly  to  seek  industrial  em- 
ployment. A  single  person,  without  family  responsibilities, 
can  more  easily  hazard  the  uncertainties  of  emigration 
to  a  strange  land;  a  married  wage-earner  will  as  a  rule  leave 
his  family  behind,  until  he  feels  certain  of  his  ability  to 
provide  for  them  in  the  new  country. 

That  Scandinavian  immigration  to  the  United  States 
was  in  no  way  affected  by  immigration  from  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europe  is  evidenced  by  the  change  in  the  direction 

1  Computed  from  Statistical  Abstract  of  the  Principal  and  other  Foreign 
Countries  (British},  No.  XVI.,  p.  8;  No.  XXXV.,  pp.  8,  10. 

a  At  the  census  of  1900,  49.8  per  cent  of  all  Norwegians,  42.3  per 
cent  of  all  Danes,  and  30.2  per  cent  of  all  Swedes  in  the  United  States 
were  reported  as  engaged  in  agricultural  pursuits.  It  is  probable  that 
some  of  those  who  were  described  by  the  enumerators  in  agricultural 
districts  as  laborers  were  agricultural  laborers.  Both  groups  com« 
bined  numbered  59.3  per  cent  of  all  Norwegians,  52.3  per  cent  of  all 
Danes,  and  43  percent  of  all  Swedes. — Reports  of  the  Immigration  Com- 
mission, vol.  28,  Table  IA,  pp.  216  et  seq. 


198 


Immigration  and  Labor 


of  the  former;  whereas  prior  to  1890  the  greater  part  of 
Scandinavian  immigration  was  directed  to  the  agricultural 
States  of  the  Central  West  and  the  Northwest,  since  1890 
the  majority  of  the  Scandinavian  immigrants  follow  the 
current  of  immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe. 
The  figures  are  presented  in  Table  56.  The  increase  of  the 
number  of  foreign-born  from  Scandinavian  countries  and 
from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  in  1880-1910  represents 
the  net  results  of  immigration  from  those  countries,  as 
reduced  by  emigration  and  death.  In  Diagram  XV  a 
graphic  representation  of  the  same  figures  is  furnished, 
each  number  being  expressed  in  the  area  of  the  correspond- 
ing semicircle  or  quadrant.  The  black  quadrants  rep- 
resent Scandinavians,  the  shaded  semicircles  and  quadrants 
natives  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  The  left  side 
represents  the  eleven  Western  States  indicated  on  the  map, 
the  right  side,  all  other  States  and  Territories. 

TABLE  56. 

INCREASE  OF  FOREIGN-BORN  FROM  THE  SCANDINAVIAN  COUNTRIES  AND 

FROM  EASTERN  AND  SOUTHERN  EUROPE,  1880-1910,  BY 

GEOGRAPHIC  DIVISIONS  (THOUSANDS).1 


Period 

Scandinavians 

Natives  of  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europe 

Eleven 
Western 
States 

All  other 
States  and 
Territories 

Eleven 
Y/estern 
States 

All  other 
States  and 
Territories 

1880-1890  

251 

3^ 

242 
92 

99 

45 
39 
189 

474 

976 
2850 

1890-1900  

1900—1910  . 

If  it  were  true  that  the  Scandinavians  stayed  away  from 
the  United  States  because  they  were  reluctant  to  compete 
with  immigrants  from  Southern  ^and  Eastern  Europe,  we 
should  expect  to  find  that  the  recent  Scandinavian  immi- 
grants, like  their  predecessors,  were  headed  for  the  West 

1  See  Appendix,  Table  XIV. 


199 


200  Immigration  and  Labor 

where  the  field  was  comparatively  clear,  and  avoided  those 
States  which  attracted  the  bulk  of  immigration  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  Table  56  and  Diagram  XV 
furnish  clear  proof  to  the  contrary.  From  1880  to  1890  the 
net  accessions  to  the  Scandinavian  population  were  about 
evenly  divided  between  the  western  agricultural  States, 
where  immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe 
was  insignificant,  and  the  rest  of  the  United  States,  where 
the  Scandinavians  were  outnumbered  by  the  races  of  South- 
ern and  Eastern  Europe.  (See  the  circle  on  the  left ;  com- 
pare the  two  black  quadrants  with  each  other  and  with 
the  shaded  quadrant  and  semicircle  on  each  side.)  At  the 
end  of  the  next  ten  years,  the  Western  States,  where  the 
accretions  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  had  declined, 
held  only  one  third  of  the  net  gains  of  the  Scandinavian 
population,  while  two  thirds  were  distributed  over  other 
States,  where  they  had  to  face  ten  times  as  many  new 
competitors  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  (See 
the  circle  in  the  middle;  repeat  the  same  comparisons,  as 
above.)  Again  during  the  past  decade  most  of  the  new 
Scandinavian  population  sought  employment  in  these 
States,  where  they  were  overwhelmed  by  the  enormous 
tide  of  immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe, 
and  only  a  minority  settled  in  the  West,  where  there  were 
comparatively  few  newcomers  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe.  (See  the  circle  on  the  right;  repeat  the  same 
comparisons  as  above.) 

It  is  evident  that  the  Scandinavian  immigrant  did  not 
seek  to  avoid  the  competition  of  the  Italian  and  the  Slav. 
Nor  did  the  average  Scandinavian  immigrant  at  any  time 
display  such  superior  skill  as  would  place  him  above  the 
competition  of  the  immigrant  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe.  Most  of  the  Scandinavian  immigrants,  like  the 
Slavs  and  the  Italians,  come  from  rural  districts.1  The 

1  According  to  Swedish  official  statistics,  the  ratio  of  emigrants  from 
rural  districts  to  the  total  emigration  was  76  per  cent  in  1891-1900 
and  77  per  cent  in  1901-1908.  (Computed  from  Gustav  Sundbarg's 


From  Northern  and  Western  Europe   201 

distribution  of  Scandinavian  immigrants  by  occupation  has 
undergone  no  material  change  since  1881,  as  witnessed  by 
the  following  table: 

TABLE  57. 

DISTRIBUTION   OF   SCANDINAVIAN   IMMIGRANT    BREADWINNERS   BY   MAIN 
CLASSES  OF   OCCUPATIONS  (THOUSANDS), 


Occupations 

1881-1890 

1891-1900 

I9OI-I9ZO 

46 

•je 

OI 

Agricultural  workers,  laborers, 

70S 

2O2 

y* 

•72^ 

All  others  

c 

T-i 

Total  

156 

24.1 

A2Q 

While  there  were  twice  as  many  skilled  mechanics  among 
the  Scandinavian  immigrants  in  1901-1910  as  in  1881-1890, 
yet  the  bulk  of  them  have  always  been  laborers  or  farm 
workers  without  special  mechanical  skill.  The  number  of 
unskilled  laborers  in  1901-1910  was  greater  than  in  1881- 
1890,  and  it  was  these .  unskilled  Scandinavian  laborers 
that  sought  employment  in  competition  with  unskilled 
Slav  and  Italian  laborers.  If  the  increase  of  immigration 
from  the  Scandinavian  countries  was  not  fast  enough  to 
satisfy  the  preference  of  certain  social  theorists  for  the  races 
of  Northern  Europe,  the  explanation  of  this  comparatively 
slow  growth  must  be  sought  in  the  economic  conditions  of 
those  countries,  not  in  the  immigration  from  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europe  to  the  United  States. 

Ekonomisk-Statistisk  Beskrifning  ofver  Sveriges  Olika  Landsdelar,  p.  20, 
Table  22.)  «  See  footnotes  to  Table  55. 

2  From  a  comparison  of  the  distribution  of  the  Scandinavian  immi- 
grants by  occupation  in  our  immigration  statistics  with  the  Swedish 
statistics  of  occupations  of  emigrants,  it  appears  that  the  distinction 
between  agricultural  workers,  laborers,  and  servants  in  our  official 
statistics  is  not  reliable.  (Compare  American  sources  cited  in  footnote 
to  Table  55  and  "  Gustav  Sundbarg,  op.  cit.,  p.  20,  Table  22.) 


202  Immigration  and  Labor 

D.     Norway 

The  merging  of  all  Scandinavians  into  one  racial  group  in 
United  States  statistics  has  obscured  the  fact  that  while 
the  total  immigration  from  Sweden  and  Denmark  (includ- 
ing dependents)  has  declined  since  1881-1890,  immigra- 
tion from  Norway  reached  its  maximum  during  the  decade 
1901-1910,  as  shown  in  the  table  next  below: 

TABLE  58. 

IMMIGRATION  FROM  NORWAY  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES.* 

Period  Number 

Up  to  1880 148,341 

1881-1890 176,586 

1891-1900 95,014 

I90I-I9IO 190,505 

Total 610,446 

The  number  of  Norwegian  immigrants  of  both  sexes 
and  all  ages  in  1901-1910  was  double  the  total  for  the  pre- 
ceding ten-year  period  and  8  per  cent  above  the  high  water- 
mark reached  in  1881-1890.  All  that  can  be  said  is  that 
the  rate  of  increase  of  the  population  of  Norway  from  1875 
to  1900  was  23.1  per  cent,  i.  e.,  approximately  18  per  cent 
in  twenty  years,  so  that,  taking  the  emigration  of  1881- 
1890  as  a  standard,  it  will  be  found  that  emigration  from 
Norway  has  not  increased  as  fast  as  her  population. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  majority  of  the  Scandina- 
vian emigrants  came  from  agricultural  districts.  One  half 
of  the  Norwegians  who  came  to  the  United  States  before 
1900  were  engaged  in  agricultural  pursuits.  Since  the 
opportunity  eventually  to  secure  a  homestead  in  the  United 
States  is  gone,  the  Norwegian  agricultural  laborer  who  is 
dissatisfied  with  his  condition  must  seek  employment  in 
industry.  And  here  the  development  of  the  Norwegian 
industry  offers  him  many  an  opportunity  at  home.  The 
recent  industrial  progress  of  Norway  can  be  gauged  by  the 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  Table  9,  pp.  66-96. 


From  Northern  and  Western  Europe  203 

fact  that  from  1897  to  1908  the  quantity  of  horsepower  used 
increased  146.5  per  cent.  The  average  number  of  wage- 
earners  reduced  to  the  basis  of  300  working  days  per  year, 
increased  during  the  same  period  45  per  cent,  while  the 
total  population  increased  during  the  same  period  only  9 
per  cent.1  The  rapid  development  of  home  industry  ab- 
sorbed a  portion  of  the  agricultural  surplus  population 
which  under  former  conditions  might  have  found  an  outlet 
in  emigration. 

E.    Denmark 

The  total  immigration  from  Denmark  to  the  United 
States  up  to  and  including  1910  numbered  only  a  quarter 
of  a  million,  distributed  as  follows : 

TABLE  59. 

IMMIGRATION  FROM  DENMARK  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES,  l82O-I9IO.a 

Period  Number 

Up  to  1880 53,774 

1881-1890 88,132 

1891-1900 50,231 

1901-1910 65,285 


Total 257,422 

While  immigration  was  greater  during  the  last  ten-year 
period  than  during  the  preceding,  yet  it  did  not  reach  the 
high  level  of  1881-1890.  Since  nearly  one  half  of  all  Danes 
in  the  United  States  in  1900  were  engaged  in  agricultural 
pursuits,  the  decrease  of  Danish  immigration  to  the  United 
States  might  have  some  relation  to  the  decline  in  the  demand 
for  farm  help  in  the  United  States. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  last  fifteen  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century  "witnessed  a  great  improvement  in  the  condition 
of  life  all  round  of  the  Danish  peasant  farmer."3  Among 

1  Statistigue  Industrielle  pour  Vannee  ipo8,  editee  par  V office  des  Assu- 
rances de  I'Etat,  pp.  18*,  230*,  Kristiania,  1911. 

'Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  pp.  66-96,  176-204. 

3  Erik  Givskov,  "Peasant  Farming  in  Denmark,"  The  Economic 
Journal,  vol.  viii  (1903),  p.  646. 


204  Immigration  and  Labor 

the  causes  of  that  improvement,  the  most  important  one 
is  the  rapid  spread  of  co-operation  in  all  branches  of  farming. 
The  first  co-operative  creamery  was  established  in  1882. 
According  to  a  special  census  taken  in  1906,  there  were 
1068  such  creameries  whose  membership  embraced  82.3 
per  cent  of  all  dairy  farms.  The  co-operative  creameries 
controlled  93  per  cent  of  the  total  milk  production  of  the 
country.  The  first  co-operative  association  of  exporters 
of  eggs  was  established  in  1890.  In  1906  there  were  790 
such  associations  with  a  membership  of  over  50,000  farmers, 
who  owned  in  the  aggregate  over  1,900,000  hens.  There 
were  in  1905,  thirty-two  co-operative  slaughter  houses  with 
a  membership  of  63,000  farmers  who  owned  one  half  of  all 
the  swine  of  the  country. x  As  a  result,  the  export  of  agri- 
cultural products  from  Denmark  increased  sixfold  in  twenty 
years,  viz.,  from  an  annual  average  of  49,000,000  crowns3 
in  1881-1885  to  313,000,000  crowns  in  1901-1905. 3 

The  progress  of  agriculture  has  turned  Denmark  into  a 
country  of  immigration.  Considerable  numbers  of  Polish 
peasants  come  during  every  agricultural  season  to  work  on 
the  farms  in  Denmark;  in  1907,  their  number  was  625 1,4 
which  was  equal  to  three  fourths  of  the  average  annual 
emigration  of  the  period  1881-1890. 

The  manufacturing  industries  of  the  country  have  also 
made  progress.  The  total  horsepower  used  in  manufactures 
increased  156  per  cent  from  1897  to  1906.  The  number  of 
wage-earners  increased  15.4  per  cent,  while  the  population 
increased  only  3.5  per  cent  from  1901  to  1906,  i.  e.,  about  n 
per  cent  in  nine  years.5  The  industrial  progress  of  Den- 

*  Danmarks  Statistik.     Landbrugets  Andelsvirk  somhed.     Udgivet  at 
Statens  Statistiske  Bureau,  1906,  pp.  8,  20,  24,  41,  43,  51,  67,  69. 

3 1  crown  =  26.8  cents. 

» Danemark,  Precis  de  Statistique,  1907,  pp.  14-15. 

*  Statistique  de  Danemark,  Annuaire  Statistique,  1908,  p.  129,  Table 
98. 

*  Danemark,  Precis  de  Statistique,  1907,  p.   13.    British   Statistical 
Abstract  for  the  Principal  and  other  Foreign  Countries,  No.  XXXV.,  pp. 
8.  10. 


From  Northern  and  Western  Europe  205 

mark  encouraged  organization  among  wage-earners.  In 
1908,  60  per  cent  of  all  industrial  workers  in  Denmark 
were  organized.1 

The  improvement  of  the  condition  of  the  Danish  people 
within  the  last  twenty-five  years  is  sufficient  to  account  for 
the  decrease  of  emigration  from  that  country,  irrespective 
of  the  immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  to 
the  United  States. 

F.    Sweden 

The  emigration  movement  from  Sweden  for  the  past 
half -century  is  classified  by  country  of  destination  in  the 
following  table : 

TABLE  60. 

ANNUAL    AVERAGE    EMIGRATION    FROM    SWEDEN    BY    DESTINATION, 
(THOUSANDS),  1861-1908.' 


Period 

To  non-European 
countries 

To  European 
countries 

1861-1870 

8.9 

34 

1871-1880 

IO.I 

4.9 

1881-1890 

324 

5-2 

1891-1900 

20.4 

4.2 

1901-1908 

22.6 

3-4 

Emigration  from  Sweden,  after  reaching  its  highest  point 
in  1881-1890,  began  to  decline.  The  fact  to  be  noted  is 
that  this  declining  tendency  affected  alike  emigration 
over-sea  as  well  as  to  European  countries.  The  probable 
causes  of  the  decline  of  each  movement  must  be  examined 
separately. 

A  study  of  the  sources  of  Swedish  emigration  shows  that 
the  greater  part  of  it  came  from  rural  districts,  but  the 

1  Handworterbuch  der  Staatswissenschaften,  vol.  iv.,  p.  1210. 
a  Compiled  from  Gustav  Sundbdrg's  Ekonomisk-Statistisk  Beskrifning 
tifver  Sveriges  Olika  Landsdelar,  1910,  p.  95,  Table  45. 


206 


Immigration  and  Labor 


general  decline  of  the  movement  did  not  affect  the  urban 
and  the  rural  districts  in  the  same  degree.  The  difference 
appears  from  the  following  figures : 

TABLE  61. 

AVERAGE   ANNUAL   EMIGRATION   FROM  CITIES  AND   RURAL    DISTRICTS   OF 

SWEDEN  (THOUSANDS),  1 88 1-1907.* 


Period 

Prom  rural 
districts 

From  cities 

Total 

1881-1890 
1891-1900 
1901-1907 

304 
I8.7 
21.3 

7.2 
6.0 
6.4 

37-6 
24.7 
27.7 

We  find  that  the  decline  of  the  total  emigration  is  due  to 
the  decline  of  emigration  from  the  rural  districts.  A 
comparison  of  the  last  two  tables  further  shows  that  the 
decrease  of  the  average  rural  emigration  from  1881-1890 
to  1901-1907  is  approximately  equal  to  the  decrease  of  the 
average  emigration  to  non-European  countries  during  the 
same  period.  If  it  is  remembered  that  30.2  per  cent  of 
the  Swedes  who  had  settled  in  the  United  States  in  the  past 
century  were  engaged  in  agriculture  and  that  during  the 
last  twenty  years  the  direction  of  Scandinavian  immigration 
to  the  United  States  turned  from  the  West  to  the  East,  the 
reason  of  the  decline  of  emigration  from  the  rural  districts 
of  Sweden  will  be  apparent:  the  United  States  no  longer 
holds  out  to  the  Swedish  peasant  the  hope  of  becoming  a 
farmer.  The  Swedish  peasant  who  is  dissatisfied  with  his 
surroundings  must  look  for  industrial  employment.  And 
he  finds  that  there  are  ample  opportunities  in  Sweden 
which  attract  immigrants  from  foreign  countries. 

A  comparison  of  the  emigration  from  Sweden  to  other 
European  countries  with  the  immigration  to  Sweden  from 
those  countries  brings  out  the  jact  that  during  the  past 
decade  the  balance  for  the  first  time  turned  in  favor  of 
Sweden: 

*  Sundbarg,  loc.  tit.,  p.  13,  Table  17  (computed). 


From  Northern  and  Western  Europe  207 

TABLE  62. 

ANNUAL  AVERAGE  EMIGRATION  FROM  SWEDEN  TO  OTHER  EUROPEAN 
COUNTRIES  AND  IMMIGRATION  TO  SWEDEN  FROM  OTHER  EUROPEAN 

COUNTRIES  (THOUSANDS),  1 881-1908. x 


Annual  average 

Emigration 

Immigration 

Net  immigration  (  +) 
or  emigration  (—  ) 

1881-1890 
1891-1900 
1901-1908 

5-2 
4.2 

34 

2.9 

3-1 
4.1 

-2.3 
—  I.I 

+  -7 

It  appears  from  Table  62  that  while  emigration  from 
Sweden  to  other  European  countries  has  been  decreasing 
from  decade  to  decade,  immigration  to  Sweden  from  those 
countries  has  been  on  the  increase.  The  net  result  of  these 
movements  during  the  last  period  was  a  slight  surplus  of 
immigration  over  emigration.  Evidently  economic  opportu- 
nities in  Sweden  must  have  sufficiently  improved  to  attract 
more  foreigners  while  fewer  Swedish  people  left  the  country. 

The  industrial  progress  of  Sweden  is  contemporaneous 
with  the  recent  development  of  hydraulic  and  hydro-electric 
engineering,  which  has  harnessed  the  water  power  furnished 
in  abundance  by  her  mountains.  More  than  one  half  of 
her  motive  power  used  in  1907  was  derived  from  water 
power,  either  directly  or  in  the  form  of  electric  current 
generated  by  water  power.  The  increase  in  the  use  of 
water  power  since  1896  amounted  to  134  per  cent.2  As  an 
index  of  Sweden's  industrial  advance  since  the  time  when 
her  emigration  was  at  its  highest  level,  may  be  used  the 
production  of  iron  ore,  which  increased  from  an  annual 
average  of  900,000  tons  in  1881-1890  to  an  average  of  more 
than  3,500,000  in  1901-1905,  i.  e.,  nearly  fourfold.3 

1  Sundbarg,  loc.  cit.t  pp.  95-96,  Tables  45-46. 

a  Out  of  a  total  of  607,000  horse-power  used  for  driving  machinery  or 
generating  electric  power,  330,000  was  water  power. — Sveriges  Officiella 
Statistik.  Fabriker  och  Handtverk,  1907,  pp.  xxix.  and  118. 

*Eli  F.  Heckscher,  Till  Belysning  af  Jdrnvdgarnas  Betydelse  for 
Sveriges  Ekonomiska  Utveckling,  p.  91. 


208  Immigration  and  Labor 

The  number  of  wage-earners  in  Swedish  factories  in- 
creased from  202,000  in  1896  to  303,000  in  1907,  i.  e.,  at  the 
rate  of  50  per  cent  in  eleven  years. l  The  growth  of  Swedish 
industries  far  outran  the  increase  of  her  population.  The 
factories  offered  employment  to  an  average  of  9000  new 
hands  annually,  which  was  approximately  equal  to  the 
decrease  in  the  annual  average  emigration  from  1881-1890 
to  1901-1908. 

To  what  extent  the  wage-earners  of  Sweden  have  im- 
proved the  opportunities  of  the  industrial  situation,  is 
shown  by  the  rapid  progress  of  organization  of  labor  and 
the  spread  of  collective  bargaining.  The  total  membership 
of  labor  organizations  increased  from  50,000  in  1900  to 
260,000  in  1908.  The  proportion  of  organized  workers  to 
the  total  number  of  industrial  wage-earners  was  estimated 
at  45  per  cent.2  A  highly  instructive  account  of  the 
progress  of  collective  bargaining  is  given  in  a  Swedish 
government  report,  from  which  the  following  is  condensed.3 

About  one  half  of  the  total  number  of  wage-earners  were 
employed  in  establishments  which  had  adopted  the  system 
of  collective  bargaining.  In  the  coal  mines,  sugar  factories, 
and  potteries  collective  bargaining  was  practically  the 
general  rule.  In  trade  and  transportation  nearly  all  the 
employees  of  private  telephone  companies,  about  90  per 
cent  of  all  employees  of  electric  street  railways,  and  66  per 
cent  of  the  employees  on  private  steam  railways  were 
working  under  collective  trade  agreements.  In  the  build- 
ing trades  about  three  fourths  of  the  total  number  and  in 
the  factories  and  hand  trades  about  one  half  were  employed 
under  the  same  system.  The  principal  industries  where 
collective  bargaining  has  been  adopted  and  the  percentage 
of  the  total  number  of  wage-earners  affected  in  each  of 
them  are  given  in  the  following  table : 

1  Sveriges  Officiella  Statistik.    Fabriker  och  Handtoerk,  1907,  p.  xxviii. 
There  are  no  comparable  figures  prior  to  1896. 

2  Handworterbuch  der  Staatswissenschaften,  vol.  iv,  p.  1211. 

3  Kollektivaftal  A  ngaenda  Arbets-och — Loneforhdllenden  i  Sverige  (Stock, 
holm,  1910),  pp.  246-249. 


From  Northern  and  Western  Europe  209 

TABLE  63. 

PER  CENT  OF   WAGE-EARNERS  EMPLOYED   UNDER  THE   SYSTEM    OF   COL. 
LECTIVE   BARGAINING  IN  THE  PRINCIPAL  INDUSTRIES  OF  SWEDEN. 

Printing 93 

Fertilizers 82 

Rubber 82 

Matches 79 

Tobacco  manufactures 75 

Collieries 71 

Machinery .' 68 

Jewelry 63 

Cabinet  making 47 

Glass 47 

Iron  and  steel 44 

Leather 42 

Textiles 35 

In  all  of  these  industries  [says  the  official  report]  it  is  chiefly  the 
large-scale  establishments  that  have  adopted  collective  bargaining, 
whereas  those  establishments,  where  it  is  absent,  generally  belong  to  the 
small-scale  industry.  Whenever  a  trust  or  a  combine  is  organized  in  an 
industry,  collective  labor  agreements  generally  comprise  a  greater 
number  of  factories  within,  than  without  the  combination. 

A  noteworthy  feature  of  these  trade  agreements  is  the 
provision  for  compensation  in  cases  of  work  accidents  which 
are  not  within  the  law  of  1901 .  Provisions  of  this  character 
are  found  in  1313  agreements  affecting  67  per  cent  of  the 
total  number  of  wage-earners  coming  under  the  operation 
of  this  system. 

It  will  not  be  disputed  that  the  Slav  and  Italian  immi- 
grants to  the  United  States  are  not  responsible  for  the  utili- 
zation of  the  water  power  supply  of  the  Scandinavian 
mountain  range,  with  the  resulting  industrial  upheaval 
which  created  a  lively  demand  for  labor  in  Sweden.  That 
nevertheless  the  immigration  of  unskilled  laborers  from 
Sweden  to  the  United  States  continues  and  grows,  is  the 
best  evidence  that  many  of  them  consider  the  opportunities 
in  the  United  States  superior  to  those  which  are  open  to 
them  at  home. 

G.     The  United  Kingdom 
Emigrants  from  the  British  Isles  enjoy  a  great  advantage 


210  Immigration  and  Labor 

over  those  of  all  other  nations  in  that  the  main  fields  of 
modern  immigration  are  controlled  by  English-speaking 
peoples.  An  Englishman  or  an  Irishman  is  equally  at 
home  in  the  United  States,  in  Canada,  Australia,  New 
Zealand,  and  South  Africa.  The  recent  development  of 
those  countries  has  naturally  attracted  a  part  of  the  emigra- 
tion from  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  Furthermore,  the 
policy  of  restriction  adopted  in  Australia,  New  Zealand, 
and  South  Africa  has  conferred  a  special  privilege  upon 
immigrants  of  British  nationality. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  governments  of  Canada  and 
Australia  are  making  systematic  efforts  to  induce  immigra- 
tion from  the  mother  country. x  Contract  laborers  may  be 
freely  imported  into  Canada,  as  well  as  into  Australia. 
Salaried  agents  of  the  Dominion  government  are  stationed 
in  the  large  cities  of  Great  Britain  to  promote  emigration 
to  Canada.  A  bonus  of  £i  is  paid  to  the  booking  agent  on 
each  ticket  to  Canada  sold  to  a  British  subject  who  is 
engaged  in  the  occupation  of  farmer,  farm  laborer,  gar- 
dener, stableman,  carter,  railway  surface  man,  navvy,  or 
miner,  and  who  signifies  his  intention  to  follow  farming  or 
railway  construction  work  in  Canada.2  Not  content  with 
the  work  of  regular  immigration  agents,  Canada  has  been 
sending  agricultural  delegates  to  Great  Britain.  The 
Salvation  Army  is  also  utilized  as  an  agency  to  promote 
emigration  to  Canada,  and  grants  of  money  are  made  to  the 
Army  for  that  purpose.  Canada  annually  receives  a  consid- 
erable number  of  English  immigrants,  who  have  been  sent  by 
private  or  state  aid  from  the  mother  country. 3  Canada  also 
encourages  the  immigration  of  poor  and  homeless  British 
children  to  her  borders.  This  immigration  is  chiefly  recruit- 
ed from  the  orphan  or  industrial  homes  of  the  British  Isles.4 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  2,  pp.  607-631. 
» Ibid.,  pp.  607-608. 

*  In  1907,  12,336  persons  were  sent  to  Canada  by  London  charitable 
societies  alone. 

« It  is  officially  estimated  that  during  the  last  50  years  nearly  60,000 


From  Northern  and  Western  Europe  211 

The  Australian  government  furnishes  land  to  settlers  at 
a  nominal  price  payable  in  small  installments.  Moreover, 
in  all  the  states  except  Tasmania,  allowances  are  made  to 
settlers  for  improving  their  holdings.  By  way  of  further 
inducements,  the  states  pay  the  passage,  wholly  or  in  part, 
of  immigrants  from  the  United  Kingdom  whose  purpose  it 
is  to  settle  on  the  land  or  to  engage  in  farming  or  other  work 
of  a  similar  nature.  Assistance  is  also  offered  to  domestic 
servants  and  other  persons  who  can  satisfy  the  Australian 
agent  in  London  that  they  would  make  desirable  settlers  in 
Australia.  The  policy  of  assisting  immigration  has  been 
pursued  by  the  several  states  of  Australia  for  a  greater 
part  of  the  time  since  their  settlement.  According  to 
official  information  653,698  state-aided  immigrants  have 
been  admitted  to  the  Australian  states. x 

That  all  these  efforts  should  have  diverted  from  the 
United  States  a  part  of  the  British  emigration  was  inevi- 
table, irrespective  of  any  causes  originating  in  the  United 
States.  As  shown  in  a  preceding  chapter,  the  rise  of  land 
values  in  the  United  States  and  the  agricultural  opportuni- 
ties of  the  Canadian  Northwest  have,  during  the  past 
decade,  resulted  in  an  emigration  of  American  farmers  to 
Canada.  Withal,  it  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  the  move- 
ment to  the  United  States  has  been  affected  less  than  is 
generally  imagined. 

Compared  with  the  annual  average  for  the  period  1880- 
1889,  emigration  from  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  to  the 
United  States  has  considerably  declined.  But  as  appears 
from  Table  64  the  decade  1880-1889  cannot  be  taken  as  a 
standard  for  comparison.  The  only  period  approaching  it 
was  the  decade  1850-1859,  when  over  a  million  people 
emigrated  from  Ireland.2  Eliminating  the  two  exceptional 

juvenile  immigrants  have  been  transported  from  the  British  Isles  to 
Canada.  From  1901  to  1909,  inclusive,  19,034  of  this  class  were  sent 
to  Canada. 

*Ibid.,  pp.  631-635. 

a  Census  of  Ireland,  igoi,  p.  168,  Table  41. 


212 


Immigration  and  Labor 


decades,  we  find  that  during  the  twenty-year  period  1890- 
1909,  2,425,000  immigrants  came  from  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland  to  the  United  States  as  against  2,254,000  in  1860- 
1879. < 

TABLE  64. 

NUMBER  OF  EMIGRANTS  FROM  THE  UNITED  KINGDOM,  BY  DESTINATION 

(THOUSANDS),  1840-1909. 


Destination 

Period 

United  States 

North 
American 
Colonies 

Australia, 
New  Zealand, 
and 
South  Africa 

Other 
countries 

Total 

1840-1849 

912 

428 

127 

27 

1495 

1850-1859 

631 

259 

499 

52 

2440 

1860-1869 

179 

145 

286 

60 

I  670 

1870-1879 

074 

184. 

296 

IOO 

1554 

1880-1889 

728 

300 

376 

164 

2568 

1890-1899 

196 

191 

234 

171 

1792 

1900-1909 

230 

706 

477 

300 

2612 

The  number  of  English  and  Irish  immigrants  since  1890 
who  found  the  conditions  in  the  United  States  attractive 
was  8500  in  excess  of  the  annual  average  for  the  period 
1860-1879  preceding  the  "new  immigration." 

To  be  sure,  the  figures  of  gross  immigration  alone  are  not 
conclusive,  as  they  conceal  many  unsuccessful  ventures 
ending  in  a  return  movement  to  the  home  country.  In 
Table  65  are  therefore  presented  the  figures  of  net  emigra- 
tion from  the  British  Isles  by  countries  of  destination  since 
1895,  when  immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe 
to  the  United  States  for  the  first  time  outran  the  "old 
immigration." 

1  The  Civil  War  reduced  emigration  from  the  United  Kingdom  to  the 
United  States  only  in  1861  and  1862.  During  the  next  three  years  the 
number  of  emigrants  bound  for  the  United  States  rose  to  a  higher  level 
than  that  of  1855-1860  or  1874-1879.  See  Appendix,  Table  XV. 

•  See  Appendix,  Table  XV. 


From  Northern  and  Western  Europe  213 

TAB^E  65. 

NET  EMIGRATION  OF  BRITISH  SUBJECTS  FROM  THE   UNITED  KINGDOM 
BY  COUNTRIES  OF  DESTINATION  (THOUSANDS),  1895-1909. 


Destination 

British  Possessions 

Foreign  Countries 

Year 

™ 

•a 

ended 

3 

"2*3 

•O^ 

j3 

f'">: 

0 

•g 

March  31 

Is 

Sg 

o«z 

5§ 

.£?« 

H 

II 

H 

Australia 
New  Zeal 

Cape  of  C 
Hope  and  . 

Si 

V    BJ 

i 

i 
1 
i 

i! 
la 

H 

1 

1895 

6 

I 

12 

I 

20 

56 

56 

76 

1896 

6 

I 

IO 

2 

19 

40 

i 

41 

60 

1897 

6 

4 

6 

3 

19 

31 

i 

32 

51 

1898 

8 

4 

6 

2 

2O 

29 

29 

49 

1899 
I9OO 

8 
8 

8 

-6 

7 

I 
2 

7 
23 

39 

48 

39 

48 

46 
71 

1901 

7 

6 

9 

3 

25 

46 

i 

47 

72 

1902 
1903 

15 
46 

4 
4 

28 
28 

3 
3 

I? 

11 

i 

1  02 
147 

1904 

51 

5 

—  i 

4 

59 

67 

i 

68 

127 

1905 

63 

7 

3 

4 

77 

6l 

i 

62 

139 

1906 

10 

-3 

7 

105 

86 

4 

90 

195 

1907 

117 

14 

~5 

5 

131 

IOO 

4 

104 

235 

1908 

42 

21 

-5 

i 

59 

3* 

i 

32 

1909 

52 

25 

3 

2 

82 

56 

2 

58 

140 

As  appears  from  Diagram  XVI,  where  the  same  figures 
are  shown  graphically,  the  curves  representing  net  emigra- 
tion to  the  United  States  and  to  British  possessions  exhibit 
a  tendency  to  rise  and  fall  together.  From  1898  to  1907 
the  net  immigration  to  the  United  States  was  steadily  rising 
with  slight  deviations  in  the  years  ended  March  31, 1901, 
and  1905,  i.  e.,  in  the  two  presidential  years.  Since  the 
latter  year,  the  immigration  countries  of  the  British  Empire 
have  drawn  and  held  more  immigrants  than  the  United 

1  Computed  from  Statistical  Abstract  of  the  United  Kingdom,  No. 
57,  PP.  363-364.  Tables  117,  118,  119. 

"Includes  22,719  passengers  from  1895  to  1907  whose  nationality  is 
not  specified. 


214 


Immigration  and  Labor 


States,  but  the  net  immigration  to  the  United  States  also 
increased.  The  drop  in  1908  affected  the  net  immigration 
to  Canada  as  much  as  that  to  the  United  States.  In  1909 
the  net  immigration  to  the  United  States  exhibited  a  greater 
increase,  both  absolute  and  relative,  than  the  net  immigra- 

DlAGRAM   XVI. 


XVI.    Net  emigration  from  the  United  Kingdom  by  destination,  1895-1909. 

tion  to  all  British  possessions.  Obviously,  conditions  in 
the  United  States,  notwithstanding  immigration  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe,  compared  favorably  with 
those  in  other  immigration  countries. 

Another  factor  determining  the  volume  of  emigration, 
that  must  not  be  lost  sight  of,  is  the  improvement  of  living 
conditions  in  Great  Britain.  In  the  first  place,  there  has 


From  Northern  and  Western  Europe  215 

been  a  decrease  in  the  cost  of  living.  Measuring  the  cost 
of  living  by  wholesale  prices  and  taking  the  Board  of  Trade 
index  number  for  1900  as  100,  official  estimates  put  the  cost 
of  living  in  1878-1887  at  119.5  and  in  1898-1907  at  97.8. 
At  the  same  time  the  rates  of  wages  have  increased.1  An 
estimate  of  the  course  of  average  real  wages  in  the  second 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  reproduced  in  the  fol- 
lowing table: 

TABLE  66. 

AVERAGE  REAL  WAGES  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN,  1850-1900. » 

Year  Per  Cent 

1850  50 

i860  55 

1870  60 

1880  70 

1890  84 

1895  93 

1900  100 

During  the  decade  1850-1859,  when  immigration  from 
the  British  Isles  to  the  United  States  reached  its  maximum, 
relative  to  population,  and  the  decade  1880-1889,  when  it 
reached  its  numerical  maximum,  the  real  wages  averaged 
from  50  to  55  per  cent  and  from  70  to  84  per  cent,  respec- 
tively, of  the  wages  of  1900.  The  improvement  is  sufficient 
to  account  for  the  reduction  in  the  rate  of  emigration  from 
the  United  Kingdom. 

H.    Ireland 

Emigration  from  Ireland  to  all  countries  reached  its 
maximum  during  the  decade  ended  March  31,  1861,  and 
has  since  declined.  The  tide  rose  again  during  the  '8o's, 
in  the  turbulent  years  of  the  Irish  Land  League  agitation, 
and  once  more  during  the  past  decade,  but  not  as  high 
as  the  water-mark  reached  in  1852-1861.  The  figures  are 
given  in  Table  67  below. 

1  Beveridge,  loc.  cit.,  p.  9. 

a  Ibid.,  quoting:  A.  L.  Bowley,  National  Progress  in  Wealth  and 
Trade,  p.  33. 


2i6  Immigration  and  Labor 

TABLE  67. 

ANNUAL    AVERAGE    EMIGRATION    FROM    IRELAND,    MAY    I,   1 85 1, 
TO  MARCH  31,    IQOS. s 

Years  ended  March  3 x  (Thousand*) 

1852-1861  115 

1862-1871  77 

1872-1881  62 

1882-1891  77 

1892-1901  43 

1902-1908  50 

There  are  no  accurate  statistics  showing  the  distribution 
of  Irish  emigrants  by  destination  previous  to  1876.  The 
subsequent  years  1876-1908  for  which  such  statistics  are 
available  may  be  divided  with  respect  to  the  racial  composi- 
tion of  the  immigration  to  the  United  States  into  two 
periods  of  nearly  equal  length;  previous  to  1891  the  races 
of  Northern  and  Western  Europe  furnished  the  bulk  of  the 
immigrants,  whereas  during  the  more  recent  period  the 
races  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  became  the  pre- 
dominant element  among  them.  The  figures  are  presented 
in  Table  67  on  page  216. 

Two  facts  are  worthy  of  note  in  the  following  compara- 
tive table:  first,  that  the  decline  of  emigration  from  Ireland 
has  affected  the  movement  to  other  countries,  as  well  as  to 
the  United  States,  and  second,  that  the  proportion  of  Irish 
emigrants  destined  to  the  United  States  during  the  period 
of  the  great  influx  of  immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe  was  higher  than  in  1876-1890,  when  immigration 
from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  was  negligible. 

That  the  "new  immigration"  to  the  United  States  was 
not  the  cause  of  the  decline  of  Irish  emigration  is  clear  from 
the  fact  that  the  decline  had  set  in  as  early  as  1861-1870, 
at  least  twenty  years  before  the  immigrants  from  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europe  became  sufficiently  numerous  to  attract 

1  The  enumeration  of  emigrants  fronTlrish  ports  did  not  commence 
until  May  I,  1851. 

Census  of  Ireland,  1901,  Part  II.,  p.  168,  Table  41.  Statistical 
Abstract  of  the  United  Kingdom,  No.  56,  p.  365. 


From  Northern  and  Western  Europe   217 


notice.  The  conclusion  suggested  by  the  statistics  of  Irish 
emigration  is  that  there  must  have  been  forces  at  work  to 
reduce  the  number  of  Irish  seeking  a  better  home  than  their 
native  country. 

TABLE  68. 

ANNUAL  AVERAGE   EMIGRATION   FROM   IRELAND,    BY  DESTINATION, 
I876-I908.1 


To  the  United  States 

Period 

To  other  countries 
(thousands) 

Total 
(thousands) 

(Thousands) 

Per  cent  of  total 

1876-1890' 

69 

50 

72 

19 

1891-19083 

46 

38 

83 

8 

The  change  in  the  economic  condition  of  the  Irish  people 
since  the  '8o's  may  be  summed  up  in  the  following  words  of 
Mr.  Dillon: 

The  wretched  land  system  was  responsible  for  most  of  the  misery 
which  the  poor  suffered.  Successive  land  purchases  are  gradually 
restoring  the  worse  than  homeless  tenants  to  the  land,  and  each  family 
so  restored  becomes  decently  prosperous,  because  for  the  first  time  there 
is  offered  a  chance  to  make  a  living.  .  .  .  The  helpless,  hopeless 
tenants  and  the  evicted  families  are  being  made  independent.  .  . 
The  thousands  who  have  been  put  in  the  way  of  making  decent  farms 
and  homes  have  become  hopeful  and  self-reliant  instead  of  despairing. 
.  .  .  Those  families  who  were  struggling  against  starvation  on  the 
rocky  hillsides  are  now  cultivating  fertile  fields.4 

That  this  is  not  mere  rhetoric  a  few  figures  will  show. 

1  Computed  from  the  following  sources:  Census  of  Ireland,  i88I, 
Part  II.,  p.  74;  1891,  Part  II.,  p.  74;  1901,  Part  II.,  p.  74;  1901,  Part  II., 
Table  41,  p.  168;  Statistical  Abstract  of  the  United  Kingdom,  No.  48,  p. 
255;  No.  56,  p.  365;  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  Table 
9,  pp.  76-92. 

3  Calendar  years. 

3  Total  emigration  from  Ireland  for  17^  years,  from  January  i,  1891, 
to  March  31,  1908;  immigration  to  the  United  States  for  17  years  from 
January  I,  1891,  to  December  31,  1908. 

^  Hugh  Sutherland:    Ireland  Yesterday  and  To-day  (1909),  p.  108. 


218  Immigration  and  Labor 

Under  the  operation  of  the  several  purchase  acts  passed 
since  1885,  more  than  214,000  tenants  have  been  enabled 
to  buy  their  land  with  the  assistance  of  the  government.1 
This  number  is  equal  to  one  third  of  all  families  enumerated 
in  rural  areas  at  the  census  of  1901 .3  Under  the  provisions 
of  the  Wyndham  Act  of  1903,  the  government  is  authorized 
to  expend  $800,000,000  in  loans  to  tenants  at  3%  per  cent 
for  the  purchase  of  land,  which  is  to  be  paid  for  in  68  J^ 
years.3  Furthermore,  the  rent  of  the  tenants  has  been 
substantially  reduced  by  law,  to  which  must  be  added  the 
creation  of  a  legal  interest  of  a  marketable  character, 
together  with  a  chance  of  further  abatements  in  the  future. 4 

Other  legislation  has  been  enacted  for  the  benefit  of 
agricultural  laborers.  "County  authorities  are  able  to 
borrow  government  funds  for  the  erection  of  decent  sani- 
tary dwellings,  which  rent  for  I  shilling  a  week.  Nearly 
50,000  of  these  neat  cottages  have  been  erected."5 

Another  factor  which  has  materially  contributed  to  the 
improvement  of  the  condition  of  the  Irish  farmers  has  been 
the  co-operative  movement  which  dates  from  1889.  In 
1903  there  were  more  than  800  co-operative  societies  with 
an  aggregate  membership  of  80,000  farmers.6  Perhaps,  the 
most  important  among  these  societies  are  the  co-operative 
agricultural  banks,  which — in  the  language  of  Sir  Horace 
Plunkett — "perform  the  apparent  miracle  of  giving  sol- 
vency to  a  community  composed  almost  entirely  of  in- 
solvent individuals."7  There  are  more  than  200  of  these 
banks  which  lend  money  to  farmers  at  5  or  6  per  cent  per 
annum  for  agricultural  improvements.8 

The  improvement  of  the  condition  of  the  tenants  has 

*  Ibid.,  p.  114. 

3  The  Census  of  Ireland, — General  Report,  Table  49,  p.  173. 

*  Sutherland,  loc.  cit.,  p.  114. 

«C.  F.  Bastable:  "Some  Features  of  the  Economic  Movement  in 
Ireland,  1880-1900,"  Economic  Journal,  4901,  No.  xi.,  pp.  33,  39. 
s  Sutherland,  loc.  cit.,  p.  183. 

6  Horace  Plunkett :  Ireland  in  the  New  Century,  p.  192. 

7  Ibid.,  p.  195.  8  Ibid.,  pp.  192,  197* 


From  Northern  and  Western  Europe  219 

affected  the  labor  market;  there  has  been  a  substantial 
gain  in  the  real  wages  of  farm  laborers.1 

The  improvement  of  the  living  conditions  of  the  Irish 
people  is  reflected  in  the  statistics  of  housing  accom- 
modations. The  census  of  Ireland  divides  all  houses  into 
four  classes:  "In  the  lowest  of  the  four  classes  are  com- 
prised houses  built  of  mud  or  perishable  material,  having 
only  one  room  and  window;  in  the  third  a  better  descrip- 
tion of  house,  varying  from  one  to  four  rooms  and  windows; 
in  the  second  what  might  be  considered  a  good  farmhouse, 
having  from  five  to  nine  rooms  and  windows;  and  in  the 
first  class  all  houses  of  a  better  description  than  the 
preceding."2 

TABLE  69. 

FAMILIES  OCCUPYING  EACH  CLASS  OF  INHABITED  HOUSES  IN  RURAL 
AREAS  OF  IRELAND,  l86l~I9OI.3 


Number  (thousands) 

Per  cent 

Census 

period 

I 

II 

III 

IV 

I 

II 

III 

IV 

Total 

class 

class 

class 

class 

class 

class 

class 

class 

1861 

29 

291 

471 

90 

3-3 

33-0 

53-5 

IO.2 

IOO 

1881 

36 

309 

356 

39 

4.9 

41.7 

48.1 

54 

IOO 

1891 

40 

332 

288 

20 

48.9 

42.4 

2.9 

IOO 

1901 

41 

353 

230 

9 

6.4 

55-8 

36.4 

1.4 

IOO 

While  housing  conditions  in  Ireland  to-day  are  still 
far  from  ideal,  yet  they  show  evidence  of  very  real  improve- 
ment, compared  with  the  days  when  emigration  from 
Ireland  was  at  its  maximum.  The  number  of  one-room 
huts  with  one  window,  built  of  mud  or  other  material  of 
the  same  class,  decreased  since  1861  from  90,000  to  9,000. 
In  1 86 1,  there  were  but  one  in  three  houses  that  might  be 
considered  good  farm  houses;  forty  years  later  about  the 
same  proportion  fell  below  that  definition. 

1  Bastable,  loc.  tit.,  p.  38. 

J  Census  of  Ireland,  General  Report  for  1901,  p.  II. 

»  Computed  from  the  Census  of  Ireland  .General  Report,  Table  49, 


220  Immigration  and  Labor 

The  results  of  the  census  of  1911  have  as  yet  not  been 
published.  In  Mr.  Dillon's  opinion,  "Ireland  has  made 
more  progress  in  the  last  ten  years  than  during  the  previous 
two  hundred  years. "  *  Is  it  reasonable  to  assume  that  the 
same  rate  of  emigration  from  Ireland  could  be  maintained 
to-day  as  half  a  century  ago? 

/.     Conclusion 

To  sum  up  the  preceding  review  of  economic  conditions 
in  the  countries  of  Northern  and  Western  Europe,  it  is 
not  because  the  "new  immigration"  has  had  an  unfavorable 
effect  upon  labor  conditions  in  the  United  States,  but 
because  those  countries  have  become  better  homes  for  their 
citizens,  that  fewer  of  them  are  nowadays  coming  to  the 
United  States.  If  this  country  is  to  have  immigration, 
it  will  have  to  come  from  other  sources.  To  be  sure,  it 
may  be  argued  that  this  country  has  no  further  need  of 
immigration  in  general  and  can  therefore  dispense  with 
immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  Be  it  as 
it  may,  it  is  a  fallacy  to  assume  that  they  could  be  replaced 
by  potential  immigration  from  Northern  and  Western 
Europe. 

1  Sutherland,  loc.  cit.t  p.  108. 


CHAPTER  IX 

RACE  SUICIDE 

IT  cannot  be  seriously  disputed  that  the  great  immigration 
of  recent  years  has  come  in  response  to  a  demand  for 
labor  in  the  United  States.  Industrial  progress  and  im- 
provement of  the  condition  of  the  wage-earners  and  farmers 
in  the  countries  of  Northern  and  Western  Europe  rendered 
the  supply  of  immigrant  labor  from  those  sources  inadequate. 
Without  the  immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe,  the  rapid  industrial  expansion  of  the  past  decade 
would  have  been  impossible.  But  it  seems  to  the  Immigra- 
tion Commission,  that  "there  is  ground  for  argument  or 
speculation"  that  "less  immigration  of  a  character  tending 
to  keep  down  wages  and  working  conditions  might  have 
been  attended  by  a  larger  natural  increase  among  the  native- 
born  portion  of  the  population."1 

This  theory,  originated  by  Gen.  Francis  A.  Walker,  until 
lately  held  unchallenged  the  field  of  economic  and  sociologi- 
cal discussion.  General  Walker  believed  that  immigration 
had  caused  a  decline  in  the  birth-rate  of  the  native  American 
population : 

The  American  shrank  from  the  industrial  competition  thus  thrust 
upon  him.  He  was  unwilling  himself  to  engage  in  the  lowest  kind  of 
day-labor  with  these  new  elements  of  the  population;  he  was  even  more 
unwilling  to  bring  sons  and  daughters  into  the  world  to  enter  into  that 
competition.  Foreign  immigration  into  this  country  has  .  .  .  amounted 
not  to  a  re-enforcement  of  our  population,  but  to  a  replacement  of 
native  by  foreign  stock.  ...  If  the  foreigners  had  not  come,  the  native 
element  would  long  have  filled  the  places  the  foreigners  usurped. 3 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  i,  p.  494. 
'Francis  A.  Walker:    Discussions  in  Economics  and  Statistics,  pp. 
432-425. 

Ml 


222 


Immigration  and  Labor 


In  proof  of  his  theory,  General  Walker  maintained  that 
the  decline  of  the  birth-rate 

among  Americans  began  at  the  very  time  when  foreign  immigration 
first  assumed  considerable  proportions;  it  showed  itself  first  and  in 
the  highest  degree  in  those  regions,  in  those  States,  and  in  the  very 
counties  into  which  the  foreigners  most  largely  entered.  It  proceeded 
for  a  long  time  in  such  a  way  as  absolutely  to  offset  the  foreign  arrivals, 
so  that  in  1850,  in  spite  of  the  incoming  of  two  and  a  half  millions  of 
foreigners  during  thirty  years,  our  population  differed  by  less  than  ten 
thousand  from  the  population  which  would  have  existed,  according  to 
the  previous  rate  of  increase,  without  re-enforcement  from  abroad. 
These  three  facts  .  .  .  constitute  a  statistical  demonstration  such  as 
is  rarely  attained  in  regard  to  the  operation  of  any  social  or  economic 
force.1 

General  Walker's  statistical  demonstration  consisted  in  a 
comparison  of  the  census  figures  from  1820  to  1890  with  a 
calculation  made  by  Elkanah  Watson  in  1815  on  the  basis 
of  the  increase  of  population  from  1790  to  1810.  The 
census  figures  for  1820-1850  closely  coincided  with  Watson's 
estimates.2  Yet,  whereas  prior  to  1820  immigration  was 
insignificant,  from  1820  to  1850,  2,500,000  foreigners  were 
added  to  the  population  of  the  United  States  without  in- 
creasing it  to  any  appreciable  degree.  The  inference  seemed 
to  be  incontrovertible  that  the  development  of  the  natural 
resources  of  the  United  States  made  provision  for  a  fixed 
population  at  every  census,  so  that  the  two-and-a-half 
million  foreigners  merely  usurped  the  places  of  as  many 
unborn  Americans.  At  every  subsequent  census  Watson's 
calculations  proved  to  be  overestimated,  viz.:  in  1860  by 
over  300,000,  in  1870  by  3,770,000,  in  1880  by  more  than 

1  Walker,  loc.  cit.,  p.  441. 
*  Ibid.,  pp.  120-122: 


Year 

Watson's  estimates 

The  census 

Difference 

1820 
1830 
1840 
1850 

9.625,734 
12,833,645 
17,116,526 
23,185,368 

9,633,822 
I2,866,O2O 

17.069,453 
23,191,876 

-f  8,088 
+32.375 
-47.073 
+   6,508 

Race  Suicide  223 

six  millions,  and  in  1890  by  over  fourteen  millions.  Chief 
among  the  social  and  economic  causes  of  this  shortage 
compared  with  Watson's  calculation  was,  according  to 
General  Walker,  "the  access  of  vast  hordes  of  foreign 
immigrants  bringing  with  them  a  standard  of  living  at 
which  our  own  people  revolted.  "x  The  revolt  assumed  the 
form  of  a  strike  of  American  parents  against  child-bearing. 
This  conclusion  illustrates  in  a  striking  manner  the  effect 
of  a  preconceived  idea  upon  the  reasoning  ability  of  a 
scientific  writer.  Twenty  years  before  promulgating  his 
theory,  General  Walker  had  made  light  of  Watson's  pre- 
dictions. Writing  in  1873  on  the  results  of  the  IX.  Census 
(1870),  he  dwelt  upon  the  social  change  which 

began  when  the  people  of  the  United  States  began  to  leave  agricul- 
tural for  manufacturing  pursuits;  to  turn  from  the  country  to  the  town; 
to  live  in  up-and-down  houses.  ...  A  close  observer  must  discern  causes 
now  working  within  the  nation,  which  render  it  little  less  than  absurd 
longer  to  apply  the  former  rates  of  growth  to  the  computation  of  our 
population  at  1880,  1890,  or  1900.  ...  It  would  be  merely  an  attempt 
at  imposture  to  assume  that  numerical  data  exist  for  determining, 
within  eight  or  ten  or  twelve  millions,  the  population  of  the  country 
thirty  years  from  the  date  of  the  last  census.  As  long  as  one  simple 
force  was  operating  expansively  upon  a  homogeneous  people,  within  a 
territory  affording  fertile  lands  beyond  the  ability  of  the  existing  popula- 
tion to  occupy,  so  long  it  was  no  miracle  to  predict  with  accuracy  the 
results  of  the  census.  But  in  the  eddy  and  swirl  of  social  and  industrial 
currents  through  which  the  nation  is  now  passing,  it  is  wholly  impossible 
to  estimate  the  rate  of  its  progress.3 

Still  General  Walker's  later  theory  stands  and  falls  with 
Watson's  predictions. 

A  reaction  against  that  theory  was  led  by  Prof.  Wal- 
ter F.  Willcox,  in  the  Supplementary  Analysis  of  the  Results 
of  the  XII.  Census.  Later,  in  a  paper  read  at  the  an- 
nual meeting  of  the  American  Statistical  Association  in 
St.  Louis  in  ipio,3  Prof essor  Willcox  proved  by  an  analysis 

1  Walker,  loc.  tit.,  p.  426.  2  Ibid.,  p.  43. 

*  "The  Change  in  the  Proportion  of  Children  in  the  United  States" 
etc.,  by  W.  F.  Willcox :  Quarterly  Publications  of  the  A  merican  Statistical 
Association,  March,  1911. 


224  Immigration  and  Labor 

of  population  statistics  "that  the  decrease  in  the  proportion 
of  children  began  in  the  United  States  as  early  as  i8io."x 
The  number  of  children  under  five  years  of  age  to  one 
hundred  women  of  the  child-bearing  age  decreased  in  1810- 
1830  by  9.9,  and  in  1880-1900  by  9.4.  Thus  the  twenty- 
year  period  of  the  recent  immigration  did  not  substantially 
differ  in  this  respect  from  the  time  when,  according  to  Gen- 
eral Walker  himself,  immigration  had  not  affected  the  birth- 
rate among  native  Americans. 

Moreover,  the  declining  birth-rate  is  a  world-wide  social 
phenomenon  of  the  present  day.  In  the  Australian  Com- 
monwealth, with  her  vast  continent  as  yet  unsettled  and 
practically  no  immigration,  as  well  as  in  New  Zealand, 
"the  decline  of  the  birth-rate  has  probably  been  as  rapid, " 
says  Professor  Willcox,  "as  among  native  American  stock."  2 

The  greater  decline  of  the  native  birth-rate  in  those 
sections  and  counties  into  which  the  foreigners  most  largely 
enter,  goes  together  with  the  growth  of  the  urban  popu- 
lation. The  percentage  ratio  of  native  white  children  of 
native  parentage  under  five  years  of  age,  to  native  women  of 
child-bearing  age  averaged  in  1900  for  cities  with  25,000 
inhabitants  or  over — 29.6,  and  for  smaller  cities  and  rural 
territory — 52.2.  The  latter  ratio,  of  course,  is  subject 
to  great  variation,  the  limits  being  76.7  in  Louisiana  and 
29 .  i  in  Massachusetts. 3  As  indicated  by  these  two  extremes 

1  Walker,  loc.  cit,,  pp.  495-496. 

'  Supplementary  Analysis.  XII.  Census,  p.  410.  Carlton,  loc.  eii., 
P- 347- 

"  So  alarming  has  this  phenomenon  of  the  falling  birth-rate  become 
in  the  Australian  colonies,  that  in  New  South  Wales  a  special  govern- 
mental commission  has  voluminously  reported  upon  the  subject.  It  is 
estimated  that  there  has  been  a  decline  of  about  one  third  in  the  fruit- 
fulness  of  the  people  in  fifteen  years.  New  Zealand  even  complains  of 
the  lack  of  children  to  fill  her  schools."-^-4  'Race  Progress  and  Immigra- 
tion," by  William  Z.  Ripley,  Annals  of  the  American  Academy m  of  Politi- 
cal and  Social  Science,  vol.  xxxiv.,  pp.  132-133. 

»  Supplementary  Analysis,  XII.  Census,  Table  XXII.,  p.  434. 


Per  cent  ratio  of  native  white  children  under  5  years  of  age,  born  of 

native  mothers,  to  native  white  females  15  to  44  years  of  age  in 

cities  of  less  than  25,000  inhabitants  and  rural  territory,  1900. 


UNDER 


50  TO  60  ft 
60%  ScOVf.fi 


Race  Suicide 


225 


the  variation  of  the  statistical  average  is  to  a  great  extent 
purely  arithmetical,  being  due  to  the  heterogeneous  charac- 
ter of  the  settlements  combined  in  this  class;  on  the  one 
hand,  there  are  the  manufacturing  towns  of  Massachusetts, 
on  the  other,  the  purely  agricultural  settlements  of  Loui- 
siana. The  connection  between  the  agricultural  character 
of  the  population  of  this  class  of  settlements  and  the  ratio 
of  native-born  children  to  native  women  of  child-bearing 
age  can  be  seen  from  Table  70  in  which  all  States  are 
divided  into  four  areas,  according  to  the  ratio  of  native- 
born  children  under  five,  and  the  percentage  of  "farmers, 
planters,  and  overseers"  to  the  total  number  of  bread- 
winners for  each  group  is  given  in  a  parallel  column. 


TABLE  70. 

PER  CENT  RATIO  OF  NATIVE  WHITE  CHILDREN  UNDER  5  TEARS  OF  AGE, 
BORN  OF  NATIVE  MOTHERS,  TO  NATIVE  WHITE  FEMALES,  15  TO  44 
YEARS  OF  AGE,  IN  CITIES  OF  LESS  THAN  25.OOO  INHABITANTS  AND 
RURAL  TERRITORY,  AND  PER  CENT  RATIO  OF  NATIVE  WHITE  MALE 
FARMERS,  PLANTERS,  AND  OVERSEERS  TO  THE  TOT^L  NUMBER  OF 
WHITE  MALE  BREADWINNERS,  IQOO,  BY  AREAS  COMPRISING  STATES 
AND  TERRITORIES  GROUPED  ACCORDING  TO  RATIO  OF  CHILDREN, 
1900.  (THE  STATES  ARE  SHOWN  ON  THE  MAP  FACING  THE  TABLE.) 


Areas 

Children1 

Farmers,  etc.* 

I 
II 
III 

IV 

Over  60  per  cent 
50  to  60  per  cent 
40  to  50  per  cent 
Under  40  per  cent 

67.2 
54-2 
47-5 
35-3 

38.4 
26.4 
21.6 

13.3 

Continental  United  States 

52.2 

24.7 

The  preceding  table  clearly  shows  that  the  native  birth- 
rate declines  with  the  percentage  of  farmers  among  the 

*  Supplementary  Analysis,  XII.  Census,  Table  XXII,  p.  434- 

a  Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  Table  41,  pp.  220  et  seq.  (computed). 


226  Immigration  and  Labor 

native  population.  The  rearing  of  children  on  a  farm 
requires  less^  of  the  mother's  time  and  attention  than  in  the 
city.  Moreover,  the  child  on  a  farm  begins  to  work  at  an 
earlier  age  than  in  the  city.  A  numerous  family  on  a  farm 
has  the  advantages  of  a  co-operative  group,  whereas  every 
addition  to  the  family  of  the  wage-earner,  or  of  the  salaried 
employee  with  a  fixed  income,  tends  to  lower  the  family's 
standard  of  living. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  decline  of  the  birth-rate  is  uni- 
versal among  those  classes  which  are  scarcely,  if  at  all, 
affected  by  immigrant  competition.  This  observation, 
advanced  by  students  in  America  and  in  England,1  was 
substantiated  by  the  Report  of  the  National  Birth  Rate 
Commission  on  the  declining  birth-rate  in  the  United 
Kingdom.  The  results  of  its  studies  are  summarized  in 
the  following  proposition: 

Such  statistical  evidence  as  is  available  for  establishing  a  comparison 
of  the  birth-rate  among  the  different  social  and  pecuniary  grades  of 
our  population  indicates  that  the  better-to-do  classes  restrict  more 
closely  the  size  of  their  families,  and  that  even  among  certain  of  the 
wage-earning  classes  the  birth-rate  varies  inversely  with  the  income.1 

Analyzing  the  interrelation  between  the  declining  birth- 
rate and  "the  condition  of  the  working-class,"  the  Com- 
mission concludes: 

1  A.   Lapthorn  Smith:    "Higher  Education  of  Women  and  Race 
Suicide,"  Popular  Science  Monthly,  March,  1905,  pp.  .468,  470.    Arthur 
Newsholme:    The  Declining  Birth-Rate ,  pp.  32,  33,  42-43. 

2  The  Declining  Birth-Rate,  Its  Causes  and  Effects,  p.  44.     By  way 
of  illustration,  the  statistics  of  births  in  191 1,  provided  by  the  Registrar- 
General  for  England  and  Wales  are  quoted  in  the  table  next  following 
(Ibid.,  p.  9).     The  returns  were  classified  according  to  the  occupation 
of  the  father  and  summarized  "in  descending  order  of  social  grade." 
The  figures  represent  the  ratio  of  births  per  1 ,000  married  males  under 
the  age  of  55. 

Social  Class  Births  per  7,000 

1.  Upper  and  middle  class 1 19 

2.  Intermediate TV. 132 

3.  Skilled  workmen 153 

4.  Intermediate  class 158 

5.  Unskilled  workmen 213 


Race   Suicide  227 

that  every  rise  in  the  condition  of  the  artisan  tends  at  present  to  lower 
the  birth-rate  in  his  class.  Wherever  political  and  social  conditions 
bring  a  man  or  a  class  into  a  position  in  which  he  hopes  to  rise  or  fears 
to  fall,  the  family  will  be  restricted.  That  class  of  motives,  which  we 
may  blame  as  love  of  comfort,  snobbishness,  vulgar  ambition,  timorous- 
ness,  or  praise  as  proper  pride,  desire  for  self-improvement,  and 
prudence,  is  the  most  potent  cause  of  family  restriction.1 

In  relation  to  the  United  States,  similar  views  were  ex- 
pressed by  the  late  Dr.  Billings  as  far  back  as  1893.  It  is 
the  desire  of  "the  lower  middle  classes"  to  maintain  "social 
position,"  along  with  "the  great  increase  in  the  use  of 
things  which  were  formerly  considered  as  luxuries,  but 
which  now  have  become  almost  necessities"  that  accounts 
in  part  for  "the  deliberate  and  voluntary  avoidance  or 
prevention  of  child-bearing."2  Still  "the  lower  middle 
classes"  are  scarcely  affected  by  immigration.  Their 
standard  of  living  is,  as  a  rule,  higher  than  that  of  the 
wage-earner.  Yet  it  is  precisely  this  higher  standard  that 
is  productive  of  a  "desire  to  have  fewer  children."  All 
speculation  to  the  effect  that  an  increase  in  the  rate  of 
wages  "might  have  been  attended"  in  the  past,  or  is  likely 
to  be  attended  in  the  future,  "by  a  larger  natural  increase 
among  the  native-born  portion  of  the  population,"  has 
accordingly  no  foundation  of  fact. 

1  Ibid.,  pp.  41-42. 

8  Supplementary  Analysis,  XII.  Census,  p.  410. 


CHAPTER  X 

.  THE  STANDARD  OF  LIVING. 

A.    Introductory 

IN  so  far  as  immigration  is  an  economic  movement,  it  is 
obvious  that  the  immigrant's  standard  of  living  in  his 
home  country  must  have  been  below  the  American  standard. 
This  is  as  true  of  the  old  as  of  the  new  immigration.  Those 
immigrants  only  are  an  exception  to  this  rule  who  seek  to 
escape  from  political  or  religious  oppression.  Its  victims 
are  not  confined  to  the  poorer  classes,  but  include  people  of 
means  and  of  standing  in  the  community,  whose  standard 
of  living  is  often  superior  to  that  of  the  native  American 
mechanic.  Since  1890,  however,  of  all  the  races  which  have 
come  to  this  country,  the  Jews,  the  Poles,  the  Lithuanians, 
the  Russians,  the  Finns,  and  the  Armenians,  have 
furnished  the  only  immigrants  of  this  class.  As  to  all 
others,  it  was  just  the  higher  standard  of  living  Fof  the 
American  wage-earner  that  induced  them,  like  most  races 
that  preceded  them,  to  emigrate  to  the  United  States.  If 
the  lower  standard  of  living  to  which  the  immigrant  has 
been  accustomed  at  home  tends  to  reduce  the  American 
standard  of  living,  then  these  effects  of  immigration  must 
have  manifested  themselves  in  the  days  of  the  Irish  and 
German  immigration  as  much  as  to-day.  At  most  there 
may  be  only  a  difference  of  degree.  That  the  standard  of 
living  of  the  recent  immigrant  employed  as  an  unskilled 
laborer  is  lower  than  that  of  the  native  American  mechanic 
or  of  the  older  immigrant  engaged  in  skilled  work,  is  no  new 

228 


The  Standard  of  Living  229 

discovery.  To  prove,  however,  that  the  new  immigrants 
have  introduced  a  lower  standard  of  living,  it  is  necessary 
to  show  that  the  standard  of  living  of  the  recent  immigrants 
employed  as  unskilled  laborers  is  lower  than  that  of  the 
Irish  and  German  immigrants  of  past  generations  who  were 
doing  the  same  grade  of  work,  or  of  the  native  American 
unskilled  workers  of  the  time  before  the  Irish  and  German 
immigration.  The  experts  of  the  Immigration  Commission, 
however,  have  simply  taken  for  granted  that  the  standard 
of  living  of  the  present-day  American  or  Americanized 
skilled  mechanic  is  identical  with  that  of  the  unskilled 
laborer  of  the  same  racial  stocks  in  the  days  before  the  new 
immigration.  This  assumption  is  not  borne  out  by  Ameri- 
can economic  history. 

The  housing  conditions  of  the  foreign-born  population 
have  been  most  dwelt  upon  in  the  discussion  of  the  standard 
of  living  of  the  immigrant,  because  they  strike  the  eye  of 
the  outsider.  On  this  subject  there  are  ample  comparative 
data.  New  York  has  always  had  more  than  its  propor- 
tionate share  of  newly  arrived  immigrants;  its  housing 
problem,  as  affected  by  immigration,  therefore,  calls  for 
separate  treatment. 

B.    Congestion  in  New  York  City 

Overcrowding  was  recognized  as  a  serious  evil  in  New 
York  City  as  far  back  as  1834.  A  city  inspector  for  that 
year  attributed  the  high  rate  of  mortality  to  "the  crowded 
and  filthy  state"  in  which  the  population  of  New  York 
lived.1  As  the  city  was  growing,  the  well-to-do  residents 
were  moving  northward  and  their  old  dwellings  were  let 
to  the  poor.  The  traditional  American  one-family  house 
was  adapted  to  the  requirements  of  a  population  of  inde- 
pendent artisans  and  small  shopkeepers,  many  of  whom 
were  home-owners.  With  the  growth  of  great  cities  and 
the  rise  of  land  values,  and  with  the  development  of  a 

1  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  452. 


230  Immigration  and  Labor 

wage-earning  class,  the  one-family  house  became  the  cause 
of  congestion  in  its  worst  form.  The  rental  of  such  a  house 
was  beyond  the  reach  of  the  wage-earner.  Each  room  was 
let  out  to  a  separate  family.  Naturally,  such  improvised 
dwellings  lacked  the  most  necessary  accommodations.  The 
basement  of  the  one-family  house  of  the  old  type,  formerly 
used  as  a  dining-room  and  kitchen,  developed  into  a  separate 
cellar  apartment. 

Towards  the  middle  of  the  '40*8  there  had  grown  up  in 
New  York  a  great  "cellar  population."  A  pen  picture  of 
the  condition  of  the  cellars  is  given  in  a  report  on  the  Sani- 
tary Condition  of  the  Laboring  Population^  which  was 
published  in  1845: 

The  most  offensive  of  all  places  of  residence  are  the  cellars.  It  is 
almost  impossible,  when  contemplating  the  circumstances  and  condi- 
tions of  the  poor  beings  who  inhabit  these  holes,  to  maintain  the  proper 
degree  of  calmness  requisite  for  a  thorough  inspection  of  their  miseries 
and  sound  judgment  respecting  them.  You  must  descend  to  them; 
you  must  feel  the  blast  of  foul  air,  as  it  meets  your  face  on  opening  the 
door;  you  must  grope  in  the  dark  or  hesitate  until  your  eye  becomes 
accustomed  to  the  gloomy  place,  to  enable  you  to  find  your  way  through 
the  entry  over  the  broken  floor,  the  boards  of  which  are  protected  from 
your  tread  by  a  half  inch  of  hard  dirt;  you  must  inhale  the  suffocating 
vapor  of  the  heated  rooms;  and  in  the  dark,  dim  recesses  endeavor  to 
find  the  inmates  by  the  sound  of  their  voices,  or  chance  to  see  their 
figures  moving  between  you  and  the  flickering  light  of  a  window,  coated 
with  dirt  and  festooned  with  cobwebs — or,  if  in  search  of  an  invalid, 
take  care  that  you  do  not  fall  full  length  upon  the  bed  with  her,  by 
stumbling  against  the  rags  and  straw  dignified  by  that  name,  lying 
upon  the  floor,  under  the  window,  if  window  there  is.1 

The  occupants  of  these  tenements  were  "principally 
Irish  and  German "  whose  habits  were  described  in  1837  as 
"more  or  less  filthy."  An  account  of  one  of  these  houses, 
in  the  rear  of  No.  49  Elizabeth  Street,  is  given  in  an  official 
report  of  a  city  physician : 

The  front  building,  a  small  two-story  frame  house,  was  partly  occu- 
1  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  453. 


The  Standard  of  Living  231 

pied  by  the  proprietor  or  lessee  of  the  building  as  a  liquor  store  and 
partly  sublet  to  several  Irish  families.  A  covered  alleyway  led  to  the 
rear  of  the  building.  This  was  a  double  frame  house  of  three  stories 
in  height.  It  stood  in  the  center  of  the  yard,  ranged  next  the  fence, 
where  a  number  of  pigsties  and  stables  had  surrounded  the  yard  on  three 
sides.  From  the  quantity  of  filth,  liquid  and  otherwise,  thus  caused, 
the  ground,  I  suppose,  had  been  rendered  almost  impassable,  and  to 
remedy  this,  the  yard  had  been  completely  boarded  over  so  that  the 
earth  could  nowhere  be  seen.  These  boards  were  partially  decayed,  and 
by  a  little  pressure,  even  in  dry  weather,  a  thick,  greenish,  fluid  could 
be  forced  up  through  the  crevices.1 

These  evils  were  not  confined,  however,  to  the  foreign- 
bom  population.  The  living  conditions  of  the  sewing 
women,  a  large  majority  of  whom  were  American-born, 
were  thus  described  by  the  New  York  Tribune,  in  the  same 
year  1 845: 

These  women  generally  "keep  house" — that  is,  they  rent  a  single 
room,  or  perhaps  two  small  rooms,  in  the  upper  story  of  some  poor, 
ill-constructed,  unventilated  house  in  a  filthy  street,  constantly  kept  so 
by  the  absence  of  back  yards  and  the  neglect  of  the  street  inspector — 
where  a  sickening  and  deadly  miasma  pervades  the  atmosphere  and 
in  summer  renders  it  totally  unfit  to  be  inhaled  by  human  lungs  de- 
positing the  seeds  of  debility  and  disease  with  every  inspiration  In 
these  rooms  all  the  processes  of  cooking,  eating,  sleeping,  washing, 
working,  and  living  are  indiscriminately  performed.2 

Bad  as  these  conditions  were,  they  were  not  the  worst. 
The  wages  of  Irish  laborers  in  Brooklyn  were  so  low  that 
they  could  not  afford  to  pay  any  rent  at  all,  so  "they  were 
allowed  to  build  miserable  shanties  on  ground  allotted  them 
by  the  contractors  on  the  plot  occupied  by  them  in  perform- 
ing the  work.'*3 

In  the  '6o's  there  was  a  "shanty  population  "of  about 
20,000  on  the  upper  west  side  of  Manhattan  Island.  It 
was  composed  of  Germans  and  Irish.  They  were  largely 

1  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  pp.  452~453- 

a  Helen  L.  Sumner:  Report  of  Woman  and  Child  Wage-Earners  in 

the  United  States,  vol.  ix.,  p.  135. 

3  Documentary  History  of  American  Industrial  Society,  vol.  viii.,  pp.  225- 

226;  quoting  from  New  York  Weekly  Tribune,  May  2,  1846,  p.  3,  col.  3. 


232  Immigration  and  Labor 

day  laborers,  employed  by  contractors  in  grading,  paving, 
and  sewering  the  streets,  and  in  the  removal  of  rock,  or  in 
excavating  for  public  purposes.  In  a  typical  shanty, 
according  to  an  inspector  of  the  council  of  hygiene,  "domi- 
ciliary and  personal  cleanliness  is  almost  impossible.  In 
one  room  are  found  the  family,  chairs,  usually  dirty  and 
broken,  cooking  utensils,  stove,  often  a  bed,  a  dog  or  cat, 
and  sometimes  more  or  less  poultry.  On  the  outside,  by 
the  door  in  many  cases,  are  pigs  and  goats  and  additional 
poultry.  There  is  no  sink  or  drainage,  and  the  slops  are 
thrown  upon  the  ground."1 

Gloomy  pictures  of  the  housing  conditions  which  pre- 
vailed in  the  '6o's  are  drawn  in  contemporary  reports  of 
medical  inspectors.  They  speak  in  general  terms  of  "the 
contracted  alleys;  the  underground,  murky,  and  pestilential 
cellars ;  the  tenement  house,  with  its  hundreds  of  occupants 
where  each  cooks,  eats,  and  sleeps  in  a  single  room  without 
light  or  ventilation,  surrounded  with  filth,  in  an  atmosphere 
foul,  fetid,  and  deadly."3 

The  Thirteenth  Ward  was  densely  crowded  with  working  classes, 
the  majority  of  whom  were  Irish;  Germans  ranked  next,  and  Am- 
ericans last.  .  .  .  The  ward  showed  a  high  rate  of  sickness  and 
mortality,  owing  to  the  over-crowded  and  ill-ventilated  dwellings  and 
to  the  ignorant  and  careless  habits  of  the  people  themselves.  .  .  . 
From  Fortieth  to  Fiftieth  Street  the  foreign  population  was  mainly 
Irish  or  of  Irish  descent,  packed  in  filthy  tenements  and  of  the  most 
unclean  and  degraded  personal  habits.  .  .  .  The  tenement  houses  in 
which  most  of  the  foreign  population  found  their  homes  were  certainly 
little  calculated  to  develop  high  social  and  moral  types,  and  indeed 
brought  to  bear  influences  working  directly  the  other  way.  3 

The  following  description  of  the  tenements  in  Sheriff 
Street,  which  was  then  settled  by  Germans,  is  quoted  from 
contemporary  sources: 

The  attic  rooms  are  used  to  deposit  the  filthy  rags  and  bones  as  they 
are  taken  from  the  gutters  and  slaughterhouses.  The  yards  are  filled 
with  dirty  rags  hung  up  to  dry,  sending  forth  their  stench  to  all  the 

1  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  457. 

•  Ibid.,  p.  454.  a  Ibid.,  p.  458. 


The  Standard  of  Living  233 

neighborhood.  .  .  .  The  tenants  are  all  Germans.  .  .  .  They  are 
exceedingly  filthy  in  person  and  their  bedclothes  are  as  dirty  as  the  floors 
they  walk  on.  Their  food  is  of  the  poorest  quality,  and  their  feet  and 
hands,  doubtless  their  whole  bodies  are  suffering  from  what  they  call 
rheumatism,  but  which  in  reality  is  a  prostrate  nervous  system,  the 
result  of  foul  air  and  inadequate  supply  of  nutritious  food.  .  .  .  The 
yards  are  all  small  and  the  sinks  running  over  with  filth.  .  .  .  Not  one 
decent  sleeping  apartment  can  be  found  on  the  entire  premises  and  not 
one  stove  properly  arranged.  The  carbonic-acid  gas,  in  conjunction 
with  the  other  emanations  from  bones,  rags,  and  human  filth,  defies 
description.  The  rooms  are  6  by  10  feet;  bedrooms  5  by  6  feet.  The 
inhabitants  lead  a  miserable  existence,  and  their  children  wilt  and  die 
in  their  infancy.1 

When  at  length  the  tenement  dwellers  crowded  the  old 
one-family  residences  to  the  utmost  limit  of  their  capacity, 
the  further  growth  of  population  led  to  the  utilization 
of  the  back  yards,  for  building  purposes.  A  special  type 
of  rear  tenement  came  into  existence.  The  terrible  con- 
ditions that  arose  from  lack  of  ventilation  and  sanitary 
conveniences  are  vividly  depicted  in  a  report  of  a  city 
inspector  concerning  a  square  of  front  and  rear  tenements 
which  were  occupied  mostly  by  Irish: 

In  a  majority  of  rear  tenements  .  .  .  the  apartments  are  dirty,  dark, 
and  often  reeking  with  filth,  the  walls  wholly  innocent  of  whitewash,  and 
the  atmosphere  impregnated  with  the  disagreeable  odor  so  peculiar  to 
tenant  houses.  In  some  the  sun  never  shines,  and  the  apartments  are 
so  dark  that  unless  seated  near  the  window  it  is  impossible  to  read 
ordinary  type;  and  yet  the  inspector  often  hears  the  hackneyed  expres- 
sion, "We  have  no  sickness,  thank  God, "  uttered  by  those  whose  sunken 
eyes,  pale  cheeks,  and  colorless  lips  speak  more  eloquently  than  words  of 
the  anaemic  condition  inevitably  resulting  from  the  absence  of  pure,  fresh 
air,  and  the  general  light  of  the  sun.  .  .  .  The  tenants  seem  to  wholly 
disregard  personal  cleanliness,  if  not  the  very  first  principles  of  decency, 
their  general  appearance  and  actions  corresponding  with  their  wretched 
abodes.  This  indifference  to  personal  and  domiciliary  cleanliness  is 
doubtless  acquired  from  a  long  familiarity  with  the  loathsome  surround- 
ings, wholly  at  variance  with  all  moral  or  social  improvements,  as  well 
as  the  first  principles  of  hygienic  science.* 

The  fundamental  cause  of  congestion  with  all  its  attend- 
1  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  461.    *Ibid.,  p.  456. 


234  Immigration  and  Labor 

ant  evils  is  the  fact  that  wage- workers  must  live  within  an 
accessible  distance  from  their  places  of  work.  This  neces- 
sity puts  the  owners  of  real  estate  in  the  factory  district 
in  a  position  of  advantage  over  the  tenants. 

The  landlord  took  the  utmost  advantage  of  the  situation  by  charging 
the  highest  possible  prices  for  the  poorest  possible  accommodations, 
and  disregarding  every  law  of  health  and  decency  in  erecting  big  bar- 
racks meant  for  occupation  by  the  poor. 

An  inspector  for  the  council  of  hygiene  in  1864 
thus  reports  the  landlords'  methods  with  regard  to  repairs: 

Every  expenditure  of  money  which  the  law  does  not  enforce  to  make 
is  refused;  and  blinds  half  swung  and  ready  to  fall  and  crash  with  the 
first  strong  wind;  doors  long  off  their  hinges,  which  open  and  shut  by 
being  taken  up  bodily  and  put  out  of  or  in  the  way;  chimneys  as  apt  to 
conduct  the  smoke  into  the  room  as  out  of  it;  stagnant,  seething,  over- 
flowing privies,  left  uncleansed  through  the  hot  months  of  summer, 
though  pestilence  itself  should  breed  from  them;  hydrants  out  of  repair 
and  flooding  sink  and  entry;  stairs  which  shake  and  quiver  with  every 
step  as  you  ascend  them;  and  all  this  day  after  day,  month  after  month, 
year  in  and  year  out.1 

Such  were  the  housing  conditions  to  which  the  "old 
immigrants"  of  Teuton  and  Celtic  stock  submitted  for 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  at  a  time  when  the 
population  of  New  York  was  but  a  fraction  of  its  present 
size,  and  there  was  still  an  abundance  of  unimproved  land 
in  the  upper  part  of  Manhattan  Island.  These  conditions 
are  a  thing  of  the  past.  The  typical  tenement  house  in  the 
Jewish  and  Italian  sections  of  New  York  to-day  is  a  decided 
improvement  upon  the  dwellings  of  the  Irish  and  the  Ger- 
mans in  the  same  sections  a  generation  or  two  ago.  "The 
visitor  of  1900  could  go  about  dry-shod,  at  least,  in  tene- 
ment yards  and  courts  where  thirty-five  years  before  the 
accumulation  of  what  should  have  gone  off  in  sewers  and 
drains  made  access  almost  impossible."2 

The  causes  of  the  present  congestion  in  New  York  City 

1  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  459. 
a  Ibid.,  p.  488. 


The  Standard  of  Living  235 

have  been  the  subject  of  an  exhaustive  investigation  by 
Professor  Pratt,  of  the  New  York  School  of  Philanthropy. 
Although  believing  that  restriction  of  immigration  would 
have  "salutary  results  in  different  directions,"  he  found 
from  the  mass  of  statistical  evidence  collected  by  him,  that 
congestion  is  produced  by  industrial  factors  which  are  not 
related  to  immigration  and  over  which  the  immigrants 
have  no  control.  We  must  abstain,  for  want  of  space, 
from  quoting  his  statistics.  His  conclusions  are  reproduced 
in  condensed  form,  yet,  as  nearly  as  possible  verbatim,  in 
the  following  abstract1: 

"  New  York  City  is  the  great  mart  of, the  American  conti- 
nent. Every  company  or  corporation  of  any  size  or  import- 
ance has  offices,  usually  its  principal  offices,  in  New  York 
City.  The  New  York  market,  therefore,  is  an  exceedingly 
important  factor  in  the  concentration  of  manufacturers 
in  that  city.  The  fact  that  New  York  City  is  large  and 
commercially  great,  makes  it  a  desirable  place  in  which 
to  locate  a  manufacturing  enterprise.  A  very  large  and 
increasing  importance  should  be  attached  to  this  element 
as  a  factor  in  the  congestion  of  manufactures  in  New  York 
City.  During  the  last  half  century  New  York  has  been 
changing  from  a  purely  commercial  city  to  a  manufacturing 
center  as  well.  The  value  of  manufactured  products  has 
increased  nearly  tenfold.  The  great  bulk  of  the  manufac- 
turing in  greater  New  York  is  carried  on  in  Manhattan 
below  Fourteenth  Street,  on  that  small  but  immensely 
valuable  one-hundredth  of  the  city's  total  land  area.  Of 
the  whole  number  of  workers  engaged  in  manufactures  in 
Manhattan,  321,488,  or  66.8  per  cent,  work  in  factories 
below  Fourteenth  Street,  while  only  160,368  or  33.2  per 
cent  work  in  the  much  larger  area  above  Fourteenth  Street. 
The  problem  of  congestion  of  population,  then,  seems  to  be 
closely  linked  with  that  of  congestion  of  industries. 

"Population  must  live  within  an  accessible  distance  of  its 
place  of  work.  Hence,  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  point 
out  how  important  a  cause  of  congestion  of  population  the 
concentration  of  industry,  trade,  and  commerce  becomes. 

1  Edward  Ewing  Pratt:  Industrial  Causes  of  Congestion  of  Population 
in  New  York  City,  pp.  14,  15, 17,  20,  21,  39,  42, 94, 97, 138, 145, 146, 155, 
166,  167,  182,  183,  185,  186,  187,  188,  204. 


236  Immigration  and  Labor 

The  conditions  of  labor  exercise  a  preponderating  influence 
upon  the  lives  of  the  workers.  Long  hours  and  low  pay 
have  compelling  force  and  necessitate  the  residence  of  the 
overworked  and  underpaid  in  the  over-crowded  and  con- 
gested districts  of  New  York  City.  Even  the  efficient  work- 
man counts  the  carfare  to  distant  points  a  drain  on  his 
income,  and  locates  near  the  industrial  districts.  The 
conclusion  indicated  is  irresistible,  that  the  factory  and  the 
workshop  are  the  predominant  factor  in  the  lives  of  these 
workers,  and  that  the  factories  in  the  crowded  sections  of 
Manhattan  are  largely  responsible  for  the  problem  of 
congestion  of  population  which  confronts  the  city  in  these 
districts.  The  latter  being  limited  in  size,  buildings  must 
be  erected  which  will  house  many  families.  Some  students 
of  the  problem  have  discovered  the  fact  that  in  the  most 
congested  districts  there  are  to  be  found  the  largest  pro- 
portions of  aliens.  The  conclusion  is  then  drawn  that 
congestion  is  due  to  immigration.  The  best  that  can  be 
said  of  this  generalization  is  that  it  is  indeed  a  hasty  one. 
The  tendency  for  people  to  group  themselves  together  in  a 
strange  land  is  most  natural.  The  newly  arrived  immigrant 
seeks  his  friends  or  relatives, — if  he  has  none,  he  seeks  com- 
panionship where  he  can  understand  and  where  he  can  be 
understood.  From  this  little  nationality  group,  he  makes 
his  start  in  the  struggle  of  the  New  World.  These  steady 
accessions  of  newly  arrived  immigrants  no  doubt  augment 
the  crowded  districts,  but  they  are  scarcely  an  important 
cause.  Similar  tendencies  of  congregation  among  immi- 
grants are  found  in  sparsely  settled  Minnesota  and  in  the 
Dakotas,  but  we  do  not  find  congestion.  The  logical 
explanation  is,  that  there  are  other  and  perhaps  more 
fundamental  causes  at  work. 

"One  of  the  most  powerful  lodestones  of  the  city  is  the  city 
itself,  and  within  the  city,  the  center  is  the  magnet.  These 
advantages  of  the  city  and  the  center  of  the  city  are  not 
purely  pleasurable,  but  are  social  in  the  best  sense  of  the 
word.  It  is  at  the  center  of  a  great  city  like  New  York 
that  educational  and  cultural  facilities  are  found  most 
highly  developed.  As  a  shrewd  employer  of  men  once  said, 
'A  man  can  get  more  for  nothing  in  New  York  City  than 
he  can  buy  with  his  whole  wage  in  a  small  town. '  He  can 
get  more  pleasure,  more  excitement,  more  education,  than 
he  can  anywhere  else.  The  city  contributes  to  every  side 
of  a  man,  no  matter  how  varied  his  nature.  This  is  true, 


The  Standard  of  Living  237 

in  general,  of  the  city;  it  is  pre-eminently  true  of  the  center 
of  the  city's  population,  where  congestion  has  occurred,  or 
is  likely  to  occur. 

"Congestion  is  often  attributed  to  the  inordinate  desire 
of  certain  races  or  nationalities  to  congregate.  The  Jews 
and  the  Italians  have  each  been  accused  of  causing  conges- 
tion. These  recent  arrivals  have  no  doubt  largely  inhabited 
congested  districts,  but  it  seems  unjust  and  unscientific 
to  assert  that  congestion  is  caused  by  these  groups  of  people. 
In  fact  the  entire  reasoning  underlying  this  theory  of 
congestion  is  based  on  a  priori  logic  and  is  open  to  serious 
objections.  The  returns  of  workers  employed  in  Lower 
Manhattan,  in  the  uptown  factories,  in  Brooklyn,  near 
Brooklyn  Bridge,  in  Williamsburg,  in  Queens  Borough,  near 
the  34th  Street  Ferry,  and  in  suburban  factories  located  on 
the  outskirts  of  Greater  New  York,  display  certain  uni- 
form tendencies  which  may  be  formulated  as  follows: 

"A  working  population  tends  to  live  in  the  immediate 
vicinity  of  its  place  of  employment. 

"The  distribution  of  a  working  population  is  greatly 
influenced  by  such  industrial  factors  as  hours  of  work  and 
wages.  The  degree  of  distribution  may  be  termed  residence- 
mobility. 

"The  residence-mobility  of  a  working  population  varies 
inversely  with  the  length  of  the  working  day  or  week. 
The  longer  the  working  day  the  intenser  the  congestion. 

"The  residence-mobility  of  a  working  population  varies 
directly  with  the  wages  or  labor.  The  workers  earning  the 
lowest  wages  are  the  most  congested. 

"The  nationality  or  race  of  the  workers  has  no  appre- 
ciable effect  upon  the  residence-mobility  of  a  working 
population. 

"  In  the  most  congested  districts  a  large  proportion  of  the 
workers  find  it  impossible  to  secure  adequate  or  comfortable 
living  quarters.  Hence  we  find  that  the  workers  employed 
in  Lower  Manhattan  take,  on  the  average,  a  longer  time  in 
getting  to  and  from  work  than  the  workers  in  any  other 
group.  Nor  do  the  workers  employed  near  Manhattan 
show  any  tendency  whatever,  that  could  be  interpreted  as 
indicating  a  preference  for  the  congested  districts.  The 
workers  prefer  to  live  near  their  places  of  employment. 
This  is  the  tendency  despite  nationality,  which  may  be 
urging  them  to  live  among  their  countrymen.  These 
facts  indicate  that  the  recently-arrived  Italian  or  Russian 


238  Immigration  and  Labor 

Jew  does  not  prefer  to  live  in  the  congested  districts. 
They  are  found  to  reside  near  their  places  of  work,  and 
when  the  two  alternatives  are  open  to  them,  the  larger 
proportion  embraces  the  opportunity  to  live  among  decent 
surroundings.  The  most  important  finding  in  the  investi- 
gation of  the  group  of  workers  employed  in  Brooklyn  near 
the  Brooklyn  Bridge  is  the  relatively  small  proportion  who 
live  in  Manhattan,  in  spite  of  its  accessibility.  With  the 
crowded  down-town  colony  of  Little  Italy  easily  accessible, 
only  37.8  per  cent  of  these  Italians  live  in  Lower  Manhattan. 
Of  the  group  working  in  Brooklyn,  there  are  more  than 
fifty  per  cent  less  Italians,  and  almost  fifty  per  cent  less 
Russians  and  Jews  living  in  Manhattan,  than  of  the  groups 
that  are  employed  in  Manhattan.  This  fact  shows  the 
effect  of  concentrating  industries  in  Manhattan  and  demon- 
strates what  a  difference  exists  when  the  factories  are 
located  only  just  outside.  Manufacturers  in  suburban 
sites  within  accessible  distance  of  Manhattan  remove  their 
workmen  from  the  congested  districts.  The  workmen, 
when  given  the  chance,  prefer  to  live  in  the  less  crowded 
sections.  This  is  true  even  of  the  much-maligned  Italian 
and  Jew. 

"When  the  influence  of  immigration  and  the  distribution 
of  the  various  nationalities  are  carefully  considered,  the 
tendency  of  our  immigrant  people  to  live  in  congested 
districts  near  the  work  places  cannot  occasion  very  great 
surprise,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  our  foreign  population  is 
the  most  unskilled,  and  therefore,  the  lowest  paid,  and  that 
it  is  employed  in  industries  working  the  longest  hours. 
This  tendency — and  the  fact  that  aliens  form  the  largest 
part  of  our  most  congested  population  is  admitted — has 
been  frequently  seized  upon  as  the  explanation  of  conges- 
tion, and  hence  these  theorists  ihave  demanded  restriction 
of  immigration  as  a  remedy  for  congestion.  However,  if 
congestion  were  due  to  the  desire  or  willingness  of  our  alien 
population  to  live  in  congested  districts,  we  should  expect 
those  employed  within  a  reasonable  distance  of  Manhattan 
to  make  every  effort  to  live  there.  But  this  is  exactly 
contrary  to  the  facts  as  brought  out  in  the  preceding  study. 
The  Italians,  Jews,  and  Slavic  peoples,  who  have  oftenest 
been  indicted  for  congestion,  have  proved  themselves 
innocent  and  their  positive  unwillingness  to  live  in  Man- 
hattan, when  escape  is  offered,  is  evidenced  by  every  group 
of  workers  in  the  factories  outside  of  Lower  Manhattan. 


The  Standard  of  Living  239 

If,  therefore,  this  mass  of  evidence  has  any  weight,  the 
oftrepeated  theory  of  congestion — that  it  is  the  result  of 
the  preference  of  the  people,  the  gregarious  instinct — is 
disproved. 

"The  basic  cause  of  congestion  in  all  great  cities  is  to  be 
found  in  the  failure  on  the  part  of  the  community  to  provide 
necessary  safeguards.  The  first  of  these  negative  causes  is 
the  lack  of  proper  planning  of  the  city.  Had  our  cities 
been  laid  out  on  broad,  comprehensive  plans,  had  our 
streets  been  laid  out  on  wide,  intelligent  lines,  and  adequate 
parks  provided,  had  our  industrial  and  commercial  districts 
been  segregated,  and  our  residence  districts  reserved,  some 
of  the  very  tap-roots  of  congestion  would  have  been  re- 
moved. 

"The  lack  of  adequate  building  laws  is  closely  linked  to 
that  of  city  planning.  The  limitation  of  the  area  of  the 
lot  which  can  be  built  upon,  the  height  of  the  house,  the 
size  of  the  rooms,  are  all  factors  which  would  definitely  and 
certainly  confine  and  limit  congestion.  But  even  those 
laws  we  have,  have  not  been  adequately  enforced.  Had  our 
laws  been  enforced  in  the  best  possible  manner,  we  would 
have  gained  a  little  in  preventing  congestion.  Of  the 
local  conditions  peculiar  to  New  York,  which  with  thought 
and  foresight  might  have  been  prevented,  the  first  and 
foremost  is  the  lack  of  adequate  rapid  transit.  Whenever 
it  has  been  advantageous  to  do  business  in  Lower  Man- 
hattan, it  has  been  convenient,  because  of  lack  of  transit 
facilities,  both  to  have  a  permanent  place  of  business  there 
and  to  live  there.  Transit  not  only  converged  on  Lower 
Manhattan,  but  what  there  was  of  it  simply  conveyed 
people  into  the  crowded  districts  and  'dumped'  them. 
Had  transit  facilities  to  neighboring  localities  been  con- 
venient and  adequate,  the  population  might  have  availed 
itself  of  the  advantages  of  the  central  city,  and  business 
might  have  flourished  in  other  than  down-town  Man- 
hattan districts.  Important  factors  in  the  campaign  for 
the  relief  of  congestion  of  population  in  Manhattan  are: 
first,  the  removal  of  factories  from  Manhattan,  and  their 
distribution  according  to  some  comprehensive  plan  through- 
out the  outlying  suburbs;  second,  the  enactment  of  laws 
to  prevent  the  reproduction  of  bad  living  and  housing  con- 
ditions in  the  other  neighborhoods.  This  is  city  planning. ' ' 

It  is  evident  from  Professor  Pratt's  analysis  that  conges- 


240  Immigration  and  Labor 

tion  in  New  York  City  is  not  wrought  by  the  habits  or 
standards  of  living  of  the  immigrants  from  Eastern  and 
Southern  Europe,  but  is  forced  upon  them  by  conditions 
not  of  their  own  making. 

As  regards  the  effects  of  this  congestion  upon  the  rate  of 
wages,  on  the  other  hand,  the  determining  factor  is  not  the 
discomfort  suffered  by  the  immigrant,  but  the  amount  he 
must  expend  for  rent.  And  it  is  a  well-known  fact  that 
house  rent  in  New  York  is  higher  than  in  the  rest  of  the 
United  States.  The  average  rent  in  New  York  City  for  a 
normal  workingman's  family,  according  to  latest  pre-war 
statistics,  was  $13.50  to  $14.00  a  month,  whereas  in  the 
rest  of  the  United  States,  it  ranged  from  $8.25  to  $11.00 
per  month.1  The  Jewish  ,or  Italian  immigrant  in  New 
York  City  was  compelled  to  expend  for  rent  about  $1.00  a 
week  more  than  the  wage-earners  in  small  towns  where  the 
native  American  workmen  predominate.  The  American 
workman  may  be  better  housed,  yet  when  the  manufacturer 
employing  immigrant  labor  in  New  York  must  meet  in  the 
nation's  market  his  competitor  employing  native  American 
labor  in  a  small  country  town,  it  is  the  native  American 
workman,  rather  than  the  immigrant  recently  arrived  in 
New  York  from  Southern  or  Eastern  Europe,  that  can  be 
induced  or  coerced  to  accept  a  lower  wage. 

C.    Housing  Conditions  in  the  Country  at  Large 

In  a  retrospective  view  of  the  New  England  textile 
manufacturing  towns  of  the  period  when  the  operatives  in 

«Amos  G.  Warner;  American  Charities,  p.  180.  "Not  only  is  the 
cost  of  housing  less  in  cities  outside  of  New  York,  but  the  accommodations 
enjoyed  are  better.  Detached  houses  are  the  rule,  with  no  question 
of  access  to  light  and  air.  The  number  of  rooms  is  3,  in  only  I  case  of 
the  53  (Rochester) ;  only  6  report  4  rooms,  and  7  and  8  rooms  are  of  fre- 
quent occurrence.  .  .  .  For  $8.00  a  month  in  the  smaller  towns  of  the 
State,  and  $10.00  or  $n.oo  in  the  cities  like  Syracuse,  better  accommo- 
ations  can  be  secured  than  for  $15.00  in  Manhattan." — Chapin: 
The  Standard  of  Living  in  New  York  City,  p.  303. 


The  Standard  of  Living        •     241 

the  mills  were  recruited  among  the  farm  girls  of  the  neigh- 
borhood, the  Immigration  Commission  has  discovered  a 
description  of  their  living  conditions  "which  affords  a 
pleasing  contrast  with  the  Lowell  of  the  present."  "The 
life  in  the  boarding  houses  was  very  agreeable.  These 
houses  belonged  to  the  corporation,"1  i.  e.t  they  were 
"company  houses,"  in  modern  parlance.  Dr.  Sumner, 
however,  in  her  History  of  Women  in  Industry  in  the 
United  States,  written  for  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  quotes 
other  contemporary  testimony  less  bucolic  in  character. 
From  the  same  town  of  Lowell,  complaints  were  made  in  1845 
that  a  dozen  or  more  of  the  "daughters  of  New  England" 
were  crowded  into  "the  same  hot,  ill-ventilated  attic." 
The  boarding  houses  of  the  Tremont  mills  in  1847  were 
described  in  the  following  extract  from  a  letter: 

T  is  quite  common  for  us  to  write  on  the  cover  of  a  bandbox,  and 
sit  upon  a  trunk,  as  tables  or  chairs  in  our  sleeping  rooms  are  all  out 
of  the  question,  because  there  is  no  room  for  such  articles,  as  4  to  6 
occupy  every  room,  and  of  course  trunks  and  bandboxes  constitute 
furniture  for  the  rooms  we  occupy.  A  thing  called  a  light-stand,  a 
little  more  than  a  foot  square,  is  our  table  for  the  use  of  6.  Wash- 
stands  are  uncommon  articles — it  has  never  been  my  lot  to  enjoy  their 
use,  except  at  my  own  expense.3 

Comparative  statistics  of  house  tenancy  in  Boston  in 
1855  and  1900  show  that  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century  the  tenement  house  population  was  as  numerous, 
in  proportion,  as  in  our  day.  This  can  be  seen  from  Table 
71  on  page  242. 

Overcrowded  and  filthy  tenement  houses  were  as  preva- 
lent forty  years  ago  in  Boston,  as  in  New  York.  There 
also  the  conversion  of  the  single  family  house  into  a  tene- 
ment house,  where  a  whole  family  was  jammed  in  every 
room,  was  productive  "of  filth  and  grime."  An  early 
report  of  the  Massachusetts  Labor  Bureau,  describing  the 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  pp.  508-509. 
*  Helen  L.  Sumner:   Report  of  Woman  and  Child  Wage-Earners  in 
the  United  States,  vol.  ix.,  pp.  87-88. 


242      .       Iitomigration  and  Labor 

«$* 

tenement  houses  of  Boston  and  their  surroundings,  speaks 
of  "hovels  rotting  with  damp  and  mould,"  of  "puddles 
reeking  with  stenchy  garbage,*'  of  "putrid  cesspools  and 
uncleansed  drains,  befouled  with  unspeakable  nastiness."1 

TABLE  71. 

PER  CENT  DISTRIBUTION    OF  THE    FAMILIES   OF    BOSTON   ACCORDING  TO 
NUMBER  OF  FAMILIES  PER  HOUSE,   1855  AND    IQOO.3 

Per  cent  of  families 
Living  in  1855  1900 

1  family  houses 31.8          32.2 

2  family  houses 23.5          26.5 

Tenements  with  3  or  more  families 44.7          41 .3 

Total 100.0         100.0 

The  degree  of  congestion  at  the  close  of  the  '6o's  is  exem- 
plified by  the  description  of  a  block  of  tenements  consisting 
of  fifty-six  rooms  which  were  occupied  by  fifty-four  families, 
mostly  Irish.  There  were  also  a  few  English  and  colored 
families  among  them.  The  stairways  were  rotten  and 
dangerous.  The  ventilation  of  the  rooms  was  very  poor. 
Washing,  ironing,  and  drying  were  all  done  in  the  only  room 
which  was  both  a  living  room  and  a  sleeping  room.3 

The  two-room  tenements  on  Meander  Street  consisted 
of  a  living  and  a  sleeping  room,  both  dark  and  damp  and 
dirty.  Other  tenements  visited  were  old,  rickety  frame 
houses  with  plastering  broken  down  and  full  of  holes  through 
which  rain  and  sun  freely  entered.  In  the  summer  the 
houses  swarmed  with  vermin.  These  houses  were  occupied 
by  American  and  Irish  tenants. 

Another  tenement  house  in  Kingston  Court  was  a  wooden 
building  consisting  of  six  apartments,  some  with  three 
rooms  and  some  with  only  one  to  each.  The  living  rooms 

1  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor,  jd  Annual  Report 
(1871-1872),  pp.  437-438. 

3  Census  of  Boston,  1855,  p.  n  (percentages  computed);  XII.  Census 
of  United  States.  Population,  Part  II.,  p.  186,  Table  XCVIII. 

3  Reports  of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  1870,  pp. 
164-180. 


The  Standard  of  Living  243 

were  10  by  14;  the  sleeping  rooms  7  by  9.  The  sun  never 
penetrated  the  sleeping  rooms.  Water  was  obtained  from 
a  hydrant  in  the  yard  upon  which  twenty-six  families 
depended.  Broken  windows  patched  up  with  boards  and 
rags,  rickety  and  broken-down  stairs  were  not  unusual. 
We  quote  the  concluding  sentence  of  the  report : 

We  could  describe  other  tenement-house  abominations  of  the  same 
foulness  and  beastly  defilement,  but  it  would  be  but  a  repetition  of 
nastiness  and  negligence,  and  for  which  neither  memory  or  dictionary 
could  supply  words  not  yet  used,  or  language  adequate  to  the  filthy 
picturing.1 

In  the  smaller  Massachusetts  towns,  the  working  people 
were  as  badly  housed  as  in  Boston.  The  following  is 
reproduced  from  contemporary  testimony  given  by  a 
canvasser  who  went  through  many  of  the  tenements  of 
Danvers : 

Take  them  as  a  whole,  they  are  horrid;  those  belonging  to  the  factory 
especially.  There  are  tenement  houses  there  that  ought  not  to  be 
occupied.  Four  families  have  complained  to  me,  that  if  they  go  to 
bed  at  night  and  there  comes  a  shower,  they  have  to  rise  up  and  put 
dishes  in  different  places  to  catch  the  water,  and  that  they  can't  sleep 
in  their  beds;  and  to  prove  it  I  went  and  examined  and  saw  it  was 
actually  worse  than  they  had  said;  one  house,  especially,  where  a  person 
came  to  me,  and  I  saw  he  did  n't  look  right,  and  I  said,  "Are  you  going 
to  work?"  "No,"  he  says,  "had  no  sleep  last  night."  It  had  been 
raining  and  his  mother  had  been  baking  and  preparing  things  for  the 
house,  and,  in  the  morning  almost  everything  had  swum  off  and  gone 
away — in  all  directions.  .  .  .  Another  house,  I  was  almost  afraid  to 
go  into.  I  could  see  right  through  into  the  cellar;  the  plastering  was 
entirely  off  the  ceiling  and  they  told  me  it  leaked  in  just  about  the  same 
way.  There  is  another  house,  where  there  is  a  yard  square  without  a 
shingle  on  it;  and  then  another  has  an  addition  to  it,  and  you  can  put 
your  whole  arm  right  in  betwixt  the  two.  It  is  more  like  a  pig-pen 
than  a  decent  house  .  .  .  when  people  are  in  the  water-closet,  the 
people  on  the  road  can  see  them.  There  is  not  a  good  tenement  in  the 
village.2 

1  Reports  of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  1871,  pp. 
517-531. 

*  Ibid.,  pp.  442-443- 


244  Immigration  and  Labor 

The  same  conditions  were  reported  from  Salem.  The 
houses  were  seldom  repaired,  the  plumbing  was  very  poor, 
and  the  pump  water  was  often  made  unfit  for  drinking 
purposes  by  the  washings  of  the  yard.  The  odor  in  the 
houses  was  bad.  The  following  description  of  a  house  at 
No.  1 8  Lemon  Street,  is  quoted  as  an  extreme  case,  which 
nevertheless  indicates  what  conditions  were  tolerated  in 
those  days: 

In  connection  with  the  kitchen,  and  only  separated  by  a  door  was  the 
pantry,  quite  reluctantly  shown  us  by  the  mistress.  She  said  that  it 
being  very  much  out  of  repair,  and  not  fit  to  be  used  as  such,  they  con- 
cluded it  was  best  to  turn  it  into  a  cowshed.  Here  were  two  cows,  and 
all  the  accompaniments  usually  found  in  a  stable,  in  direct  connection 
with  the  kitchen,  filling  the  house  with  its  unmitigated  stench.  In  this 
place  pigs  and  hens  were  once  kept,  besides  the  cow,  the  former  on  all 
occasions  making  the  freest  use  of  the  domestic  apartments.1 

About  the  same  time  (1872)  shanty  dwellers  were  found 
among  the  laborers  of  Massachusetts.  The  paymaster  of 
tunnel  laborers  employed  at  North  Adams  in  1872  testified 
that  many  of  them  lived  in  shanties  on  the  works  and  even 
kept  boarders.  ''The  miners,  rockmen,  etc.,  who  have  no 
families,  board  at  the  shanties.  They  are  filthy,  dirty 
places. 

The  congestion  and  squalor  of  the  past  were  no  better 
than  the  worst  housing  conditions  that  were  found  by  the 
investigators  of  the  Immigration  Commission  among  the 
immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  Yet 
the  tenement-house  dwellers  of  forty  years  ago  were  all  of 
Teuton  and  Celtic  stock.  As  stated  in  a  previous  chapter, 
contemporary  observers  sought  to  explain  the  bad  housing 
conditions  of  the  Irish  immigrants  by  the  low  standard  of 
living  of  the  people  of  Ireland. 3  Although  living  conditions 

1  Reports  of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  1870,  pp.  372 
and  380. 

a  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor.  Third  Annual  Report 
(1871-1872),  pp.  440-441- 

*  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  459. 


The  Standard  of  Living  245 

in  Ireland  have  greatly  improved  since  those  days,  yet  they 
still  remain  far  below  the  average  of  the  most  overcrowded 
sections  of  the  great  American  cities. 

The  investigation  of  the  Immigration  Commission  was 
confined  to  "the  overcrowded,  poor  quarters  of  the  city"; 
in  the  households  investigated,  the  average  number  of 
persons  per  room  was  I.34.1  In  the  city  of  Dublin,  accord- 
ing to  the  census  of  1901,  four  fifths  of  all  tenements  con- 
sisted of  four  rooms  or  less  with  an  average  of  2.20  persons 
per  room.  More  than  one  third  of  all  tenements  had  three 
persons  .or  more  per  room.  Three  fifths  of  all  tenements 
consisted  of  one  or  two  rooms  only.2  In  the  whole  of 
Ireland,  one  third  of  all  families  lived  in  two  rooms  or  less.3 
There  were  38,086  families  of  three  or  more  persons  living 
in  one  room  each.  These  extremes  of  congestion  comprised 
4.2  per  cent  of  all  Irish  families.  The  details  are  given  in 

Table  72. 

TABLE  72. 

NUMBER   OF  TENEMENTS  OF    ONE   ROOM  OCCUPIED  BY  THREE  OR  MORB 
PERSONS,   I90I.4 

Number  of 
Occupied  by 

3  persons 

4  persons 

5  persons 

6  persons 

7  persons 

8  persons 

9  persons 

10  persons 

1 1  persons 

12  persons  or  more 

Total 38,036 

If  it  is  maintained  that  the  immigrant  tends  to  transplant 
to  the  American  soil  the  standard  of  living  of  his  native 
country,  it  must  follow  from  the  latest  statistics  of  housing 
conditions  in  Ireland  that  even  the  present-day  Irish  immi- 

1  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  tit.,  pp.  117,  119. 
3  See  Appendix,  Table  XVI. 

'  Census  of  Ireland,  1901.  General  Report,  p.  112,  Table  9;  p.  173, 
Table  49.  « Ibid.,  Table  10. 


246  Immigration  and  Labor 

grants  are  open  to  the  same  objection  as  the  immigrants  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  The  fact  that  the  investi- 
gation of  the  Immigration  Commission  discovered  among 
the  Irish  no  overcrowding  approaching  that  of  their  mother 
country  must  be  taken  to  mean  one  of  two  things :  either  its 
investigators  overlooked  the  recent  Irish  immigrants  and 
selected  only  old  Irish  settlers  who  had  in  the  course  of  time 
advanced  on  the  social  scale,  or  else  the  standard  of  living 
of  the  recent  Irish  immigrants  in  the  United  States  was  not 
determined  by  their  living  conditions  in  Ireland,  but 
depended  upon  their  earning  ability  in  this  country.  In 
either  case  the  race  theory  of  economics  fathered  by  the 
Commission  fails. 

That  bad  housing  conditions  are  not  the  exclusive  char- 
acteristic of  the  immigrant,  but  are  found  under  like  econ- 
omic conditions  among  the  native  wage-earners  as  well,  has 
been  shown  by  the  investigation  of  the  Immigration  Commis- 
sion in  Alabama,  where  there  are  practically  no  foreigners 
whose  competition  might  be  supposed  to  have  forced  down 
the  American  standard  of  living.  In  the  outlying  towns, 
beyond  the  territory  immediately  adjacent  to  Birmingham, 
many  of  the  bituminous  coal  mines  are  operated  exclusively 
by  native  labor  and  native  white  Americans  are  employed 
as  unskilled  laborers.  "In  these  environments  the  home 
of  the  native  white  laborer  is  frequently  devoid  of  the  more 
modern  equipment  and  sanitation."1  Mr.  Streightoff ,  in 
his  study  of  the  standard  of  living,  uses  stronger  language. 
According  to  him,  "in  the  Southern  mill  towns  conditions 
are  about  at  their  worst."  The  number  of  foreign-born 
wage-earners  in  the  Southern  mills  is  negligible  and  cannot 
affect  the  housing  situation.  The  mill  workers  are  country 
people  of  old  American  stock.  And  yet  the  company 
houses  in  which  they  live  "are  neither  sheathed,  plastered, 
nor  papered,  and  the  tenants  suffer  intensely  from  the 
occasional  cold  weather."3 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  9,  p.  229. 
3  Streightoff:  The  Standard  of  Living,  pp.  76-77  and  92. 


The  Standard  of  Living  247 

The  preceding  comparison  between  the  present  and  the 
past,  on  the  one  hand,  and  between  native  and  foreign- 
born  mill  and  mine  workers,  on  the  other,  irresistibly  leads 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  cause  of  bad  housing  conditions 
is  not  racial,  but  economic.  That  the  difference  among 
wage-earners  in  this  respect  "depends,  of  course  .  .  . 
upon  the  income, "  is  admitted,  "to  a  considerable  extent, " 
by  the  experts  of  the  Immigration  Commission  with  the 
qualification,  however,  that  the  difference  depends  "appar- 
ently also  upon  the  insistence"  of  the  tenants  themselves 
upon  having  proper  accommodations.  *  If  the  South  Italian 
or  Irish  laborers,  or  the  Southern  white  mill  hands,  are  not 
so  well  housed  as  their  Welsh  foreman,  or  English  engineer, 
it  is  because,  apart  from  their  inability  to  raise  the  rent  of  a 
substantial  dwelling,  they  do  not  "insist"  upon  having  it 
for  the  money  they  are  able  to  pay.  That  the  English  or 
German  laborers  and  factory  hands  of  past  generations 
lived  in  filthy  tenements,  must  have  been  due,  by  the  same 
method  of  reasoning,  to  lack  of  "insistence"  on  their  part 
upon  better  accommodations.  This  view  implies  a  belief 
that  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  will  assure  to  the 
wage- workers  such  homes  as  they  will  "insist"  upon.  The 
economic  distinction  between  land  and  other  forms  of 
property  is  lost  sight  of. 

The  inadequacy  of  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  in  the 
matter  of  housing  was  conclusively  demonstrated  by  all 
investigations  of  the  New  York  housing  system,  which 
"agreed  in  showing  the  landlord,  rather  than  the  helpless 
tenant,  as  the  primitive  cause  of  tenement  evils."2 

In  the  mill  towns  and  mining  camps  of  to-day,  as  in  the 

1  "There  seems  to  be  a  decided  difference  .  .  .  among  the  various 
races — the  South  Italians  and  the  Syrians  among  the  recent  immigrants, 
the  Irish  among  the  older  immigrants,  not  being  so  well  provided  with 
sanitary  equipment  as  are  the  other  races.  This  depends,  of  course,  to 
a  considerable  extent,  upon  the  income,  but  apparently  also  upon  the 
insistence  of  the  persons  themselves  upon  having  proper  water  supply 
and  toilet  accommodations." — Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.,  p.  126. 

3  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  459. 


248  Immigration  and  Labor 

mill  towns  of  Massachusetts  in  the  days  of  the  "old 
immigration,"  the  helplessness  of  the  tenant  is  aggravated 
by  the  combination  of  the  landlord  and  mill  owner  in  the 
same  individual  or  corporation,  whose  income  is  derived 
from  house  rents,  as  well  as  from  manufacturing  or  mining. 
"In  many  industrial  localities,"  say  Professors  Jenks  and 
Lauck,  "especially  in  those  connected  with  the  mining 
industry,  the  so-called  'company-house*  system  prevails 
under  which  the  industrial  worker  .  .  .  must  live  in  a 
house  owned  by  the  operating  company  and  rented  to  him." x 
This  system  is  as  common  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  towns  of  the 
South,  as  in  the  Slav  settlements  of  Pennsylvania.3  If  the 
mill  or  mine  worker  were  to  "insist"  upon  a  better 
dwelling,  he  could  not  hold  his  position. 

The  Immigration  Commission  made  no  systematic 
inquiries  to  ascertain  the  landlords'  share  of  responsibility 
for  the  overcrowding  and  unsanitary  conditions  of  the 
houses  occupied  by  the  new  immigrants  in  industrial 
communities.  The  outspoken  tendency  of  its  investiga- 
tion was  to  lay  the  whole  blame  upon  the  habits  of  the 
immigrants.  There  are  scattered  in  its  reports,  however, 
occasional  items  of  information  which  tell  the  other  side 
of  the  story.  The  following  description  of  a  "company 
house"  is  illuminating: 

The  type  of  company  house  most  frequently  seen  in  the  locality 
adjacent  to  Birmingham  is  a  one-story  frame  building  containing  from 
two  to  four  rooms,  the  four-room  houses  being  frequently  divided  into 
two  apartments.  .  .  .  They  are  usually  devoid  of  any  modern  con- 
veniences, such  as  bath  or  flush  toilet. 

But  these  houses  are  "built  in  close  proximity  to  the 
steel,  iron,  or  coke  yard  in  which  the  laborers  are  em- 
ployed,"3 and  they  have  no  other  choice  but  to  take  such 
houses  as  the  company  provides  for  them,  or  to  travel  a 
distance  to  and  from  work. 

1  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.,  p.  279 

*  Streightoff,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  76-77. 

»  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  9,  p.  232. 


The  Standard  of  Living  249 

From  an  account  relating  to  another  locality  we  learn 
that  the  rent  paid  by  the  recent  immigrants  "is  excessive, 
and  yields  an  unusually  large  rate  of  return  to  his  landlord."  * 
It  may  be  surmised  from  this  illustration  that  the  income 
from  company  houses  also  very  likely  "pays  more  than  the 
ordinary  return  on  the  cost  of  the  building." 

The  effect  of  the  emphasis,  however,  laid  by  the  Com- 
mission upon  the  "tendency  .  .  .  characteristic  of  the 
South  Italian  and  Slav  races"  to  "settle  in  that  section  of 
the  town  where  .  .  .  the  house  rent  is  reduced  to  a  mini- 
mum"2 is  to  divert  public  attention  from  the  responsibility 
of  the  mine  and  mill  operators  for  the  insanitary  condition 
of  the  tenements  provided  by  them  for  their  employees.3 
The  police  power  of  the  State  is  ample  to  protect  the  health 
of  the  community  from  the  ill  effects  of  insanitary  housing 
conditions.  Considered  on  its  own  merits,  as  a  problem 
in  public  hygiene,  the  housing  of  the  mine  and  mill  opera- 
tives, whether  native  or  foreign-born,  has  therefore  no 
relevancy  to  the  subject  of  immigration. 

In  reality,  however,  the  housing  problem  is  drawn  into 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  9,  pp.  93-94. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  229. 

*  The  following  is  quoted  from  a  "description  of  a  typical  mining  and 
coke  village"  in  Pennsylvania: 

"The  typical  company  village  is  exceedingly  insanitary.  .  .  .  The 
water  supply  of  the  coal  and  coke  town  is  very  impure  and  a  source  of 
disease.  The  companies  usually  'clean  up'  the  towns  once  a  year; 
sometimes  twice,  but  often  not  at  all.  There  is  little  to  stimulate 
cleanliness  on  the  part  of  the  tenants  under  such  circumstances.  The 
mine  operators  say  that  the  existing  conditions  result  from  the  fact  that  the 
foreigner  is  too  dirty  for  the  town  to  be  other  than  what  it  is,  but  whether 
this  is  true  or  not,  it  seems  that  very  little  effort  is  made  to  improve  the 
living  conditions."  (Ibid.,  vol.  6,  p.  323.) 

The  defense  is  very  typical,  indeed.  Because  "  the  foreigner  is  dirty, " 
the  mining  company  which  owns  the  village  provides  him  with  impure 
water  which  is  a  source  of  disease,  and  cleans  up  the  village  only  twice 
a  year.  It  is  evident  that  the  tenants  cannot  build  water-works,  nor 
can  they  install  a  system  of  sewerage.  It  would  not  avail  them  to 
"insist"  upon  these  improvements,  as  there  is  no  place  to  which  they 
could  move  in  case  of  refusal,  these  conditions  being  "typical." 


250  Immigration  and  Labor 

the  discussion  of  immigration  only  collaterally,  as  an 
argument  in  support  of  a  theory.  The  Immigration  Com- 
mission has  filled  its  volumes  with  statistical  tables,  some  of 
which  show  that  the  English-speaking  wage-workers  are 
better  housed  than  the  immigrants  from  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europe,  and  others  that  the  earnings  of  the  former 
are  higher.  The  impression  conveyed  by  the  race  classifi- 
cation1 is  that  the  wages  of  the  immigrants  from  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europe  are  low  because  they  are  willing  to 
live  in  crowded  quarters,  whereas  the  wages  of  the  English- 
speaking  workmen  are  higher,  because  they  "insist"  upon 
the  American  standard  of  living.  The  Immigration  Com- 
mission's own  statistics,  however,  contain  a  refutation  of 
this  theory. 

In  the  first  place,  it  appears  that  there  is  the  widest 
variation  among  wage-earners  of  each  race  with  respect  to 
housing,  which  shows  that  there  is  no  common  standard 
of  living  for  all  wage-earners  of  the  same  race,  but  that  it 
varies  for  the  individuals  of  the  same  race.  Neither  do  the 
low  rents  paid  by  some  of  them  force  down  the  earnings  of 
others  of  the  same  race,  as  demonstrated  by  the  wide  varia- 
tions in  earnings  among  individuals  of  the  same  race. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  found  that  "the  household  of 
immigrants,  as  compared  with  the  native  born  wage-earners 
pays,  generally  speaking,  the  same  if  not  higher  rent  per 
room."2  In  some  districts  the  average  monthly  rent  per 
apartment  is  also  higher  for  recent  immigrants  than  for 
American  wage-earners  of  native  parentage.  In  Ensley, 

1  Some  of  the  "race"  distinctions  are  unique.  Thus  we  are  informed 
that  the  Macedonians  paid  $5.53  per  apartment,  whereas  the  Greeks 
paid  $5.94  and  the  Bulgarians  only  $4.28.  (Ibid.,  vol.  9,  p.  234,  Table 
687.)  It  can  be  found  in  the  Commission's  own  Dictionary  of  Races 
that  Macedonia  is  merely  a  political  division  with  a  mixed  population 
consisting  chiefly  of  Bulgarians  and  Greeks.  Professors  Jenks  and 
Lauck  also  comment  upon  the  per  capita  jnonthly  rent  payments  of 
the  Bulgarians  who  paid  only  $0.97,  and  the  Macedonians  who  paid 
$0.78.  (Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  131-132.) 

3  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.t  p.  122. 


The  Standard  of  Living  251 

Ala.,  e.  £.,  the  latter  paid  on  an  average  $5.40  per  apartment, 
the  Greeks,  $5.94,  and  the  Poles,  $5.98.  The  lowest  average 
rent  per  room  was  paid  by  the  native  white  of  native 
parentage,  viz.,  $1.38;  the  new  immigrants  ranged  in  the 
following  order:  Slovaks,  $1.73;  Bulgarians,  $1.82;  Poles, 
$1.91;  South  Italians,  $2.09;  Greeks,  $2.93. 1 

It  is  believed,  however,  that  the  difference  in  rent  is 
reduced  by  overcrowding,  which  is  "most  frequently  shown 
by  the  keeping  of  boarders  or  lodgers."2  Great  stress  is 
laid  upon  the  fact  that  the  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans 
"break  the  independence  of  family  life  by  taking  boarders 
or  lodgers  into  the  home,"  whereas  "the  native  American 
and  older  immigrant  employees  maintain  an  independent 
form  of  family  life,"  though  they  send  their  wives  and 
children  to  the  factory.3  It  is  worthy  of  note,  as  a  his- 
torical parallel,  that  in  1873  General  Walker  spoke  of  "the 
detestable  American  vice  of  'boarding*  .  .  .  uprooting  the 
ancient  and  honored  institutions  of  the  family."4  The 
Commission  has  laboriously  figured  out  for  each  race  the 
percentage  of  families  taking  lodgers  or  boarders.  Aside 
from  the  merits  of  this  criterion  which  will  be  considered 
later,  it  is  open  to  question,  whether  the  figures  of  the 
Commission  may  be  accepted  as  typical.  A  similar  inves- 
tigation recently  made  by  the  United  States  Bureau  of 
Labor  led  to  widely  divergent  results.  Out  of  1139  Ameri- 
can households  studied  by  the  Immigration  Commission 
only  10  per  cent  had  boarders  or  lodgers;  out  of  15,161 
American  households,  however,  studied  by  the  Bureau 
of  Labor  22.23  Per  cent  kept  boarders  or  lodgers.  The 
variation  of  the  percentage  by  race  in  the  statistics  of  the 
Immigration  Commission  was  from  o  to  79.3  per  cent, 
whereas  in  the  statistics  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of 
Labor  the  range  of  variation  was  from  16.50  to  30.77  per 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  9.,  p.  234,  Table  687. 

2  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.,  p.  122. 

a  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  158,  161. 

*  Walker:  Discussions  in  Economics  and  Statistics,  p.  43. 


252 


Immigration  and  Labor 


cent.     The  discrepancies  between  the  two  series  of  figures 
relating  to  the  old  immigration  are  shown  in  Table  73. 

TABLE  73. 

PER  CENT  OF  FAMILIES   KEEPING  BOARDERS  OR  LODGERS  AMONG  THE 
RACES  OF  THE  OLD  IMMIGRATION.1 


Nativity 

Source  of  information 

Immigration 
Commission 

United  States 
Bureau  of  Labor 

.0 
2.2 

4.1 

6-3 
6.4 

7-i 
9.6 

20.13 
26.89 

23.51 
26.78 
30.71 
25.92 
2379 

Welsh   

Scotch      .          ,  

Irish  

English  .  . 

That  two  official  investigations  separated  by  a  brief 
interval  of  six  or  seven  years  have  brought  such  widely 
divergent  results,  can  probably  be  accounted  for  by  the 
fact  that  the  investigations  of  the  Immigration  Commission 
were  concentrated  upon  selected  industrial  communities, 
where  the  English-speaking  immigrants  were  mostly  high- 
priced  skilled  mechanics,  whereas  the  new  immigrants  were 
nearly  all  unskilled  laborers;  it  has  been  shown,  however, 
in  Chapter  VII.  that  each  race  is  represented  in  every  occu- 
pation. The  investigation  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of 
Labor,  on  the  other  hand,  was  made  in  the  leading  indus- 
trial centers  of  thirty-three  States  and  is  believed  to  be 
"representative  of  the  industrial  portion  of  the  country  as 
a  whole.  "a 

Apart,  however,  from  the  doubtful  value  of  the  statistics 
collected  by  the  Immigration  Commission  on  the  subject 
of  boarders  and  lodgers,  the  fatal  defect  of  its  race  per- 

«Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  tit.,  p.  i6oT  Eighteenth  Annual  Report 
of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  p.  261. 

•  Eighteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  p.  39. 


The  Standard  of  Living  253 

centages  is  that  they  assume  by  implication  a  communistic 
system  of  housekeeping  among  the  foreign-born.  In 
reality,  however,  the  52  per  cent  of  the  Croatians  who  keep 
boarders  or  lodgers  do  not  help  to  pay  the  rent  of  the  other 
48  per  cent  who  keep  none.  The  latter  must  themselves 
pay  the  rent  in  full,  which  is  at  least  as  high  as  that  paid  by 
the  natives.  It  is  evident  that  the  wages  of  those  who  have 
no  lodgers  must  be  sufficient  to  enable  them  to  pay  the 
same  rent  as  the  native  Americans,  which  goes  to  show  that 
those  of  them  who  do  keep  lodgers  do  not  force  down  the 
earnings  of  their  countrymen. 

That  overcrowding  is  not  a  racial  characteristic,  but  an 
economic  phenomenon,  appears  from  the  following  table 
showing  the  comparative  frequency  of  the  practice  of 
keeping  boarders  or  lodgers  in  families  of  foreign-born 
garment  workers  and  woolen  mill  operatives  classified  by 

annual  earnings. 

TABLE  74- 

PER    CENT   OF    FOREIGN-BORN  FAMILIES   IN    WHICH    WIFE  HAS  EMPLOY- 
MENT OR  KEEPS  BOARDERS  OR  LODGERS,  BY  YEARLY  EARNINGS 
OF  HUSBAND.  x 


Husband's  earnings. 

Per  cent  of  wives  keep 

ng  boarders  or  lodgers 

Garment  workers 

Woolen  mill  operatives 

Under  $400     .... 

28.2 

61  4 

$400  and  under  $600  

•10.6 

AX  ? 

$600  and  over         

IO.O 

7T 

The  nationalities  comprised  in  the  preceding  table  are 
Scotch,  Irish,  Germans,  Norwegians,  French,  Bohemians, 
Hebrews,  Lithuanians,  Poles,  South  Italians,  and  Syrians. 
As  shown  by  the  figures,  the  percentage  of  families  with 
boarders  and  lodgers3  decreases  with  the  increase  of 
earnings. 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  10,  Table  38,  p.  685; 
vol.  ii,  Table 45,  p.  310. 

1  The  comparative  value  of  the  figures  could  not  be  affected  by  the 


254 


Immigration  and  Labor 


The  same  effect  is  produced  by  differences  in  rent. 
Among  iron  and  steel  workers  "both  the  native  and  foreign 
households  exhibit  the  smallest  proportion  having  boarders 
or  lodgers  in  the  South."  The  reason  is  that  rents  are 
considerably  lower  in  the  South  than  in  other  sections  of 
the  country.1  Of  the  South  Italian  iron  workers  in  the 
Pittsburgh  district  70.6  per  cent  keep  boarders  and  lodgers, 
whereas  in  the  Birmingham  district  there  are  only  3  per 
cent  with  boarders  and  lodgers.  Among  the  Slovaks  the 
percentages  are  respectively  43.9  and  15.0.* 

The  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor  has  made  a  compari- 
son of  the  expenditures  for  rent  per  person  in  3908  foreign 
and  7248  native  "normal"  families,  which  have  no  children 
of  working  age,  nor  any  boarders  or  lodgers.  The  results 
for  the  North  Atlantic  and  North  Central  States  compare 

as  follows: 

TABLE  75. 

AVERAGE  ANNUAL  RENT    PER   FAMILY   AND    PER   INDIVIDUAL  IN   NORMAL 
FAMILIES,    BY    NATIVITY,    IN    NORTHERN  STATES.  3 


Nativity 

North  Atlantic 

North  Central 

Per  family 

\ 

Per  individual 

Per  family 

Per  individual 

Native  

$125.54 
118.21 

$33-25 
29.09 

$97.58 
91.94 

$2445 
22.O2 

Difference  .... 

$7-33 

$  4-16 

$5.64 

$  2.43 

small  proportion  of  married  women  working  for  wages  who  were  found 
in  only  5  per  cent  of  all  foreign-born  households  studied  by  the  Immigra- 
tion Commission. 

1  Cottages  very  similar  to,  but  not  so  good  as  those  for  which  the 
southern  mill  operatives  pay  a  rent  of  $3.00  to  $3.50  per  month,  rent 
in  Southwestern  Illinois  at  from  $14.00  to  $16.00  per  month.  (Ibid., 
vol.  9,  p.  93.) 

a  Ibid.,  vol.  8,  p.  105. 

3  Eighteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  Table  V.,  H. 
and  O.,  pp.  578,  589,  590.  Other  sections  are  omitted  from  this  com- 


The  Standard  of  Living 


255 


The  difference  in  the  amount  of  rent  paid  by  native  and 
foreign-born  wage-earners  amounts  to  fourteen  cents  a 
week  per  family  or  eight  cents  a  week  per  person  in  the  North 
Atlantic  States  and  to  eleven  cents  a  week  per  family  or 
five  cents  a  week  per  person  in  the  North  Central  States. 
This  is  the  extent  to  which  the  scrimping  on  rent  enables 
the  average  immigrant  to  underbid  the  native  wage-earner 
in  the  labor  market.  In  Table  75  all  foreign-born  are 
combined  in  one  group.  In  Table  76  the  foreign-born  are 
distinguished  by  nationality  for  the  country  as  a  whole. 

TABLE  76. 

ANNUAL  RENT    PER   FAMILY   AND    PER~INDIVIDUAL  IN  NORMAL  FAMILIES, 
BY  NATIVITY  OF  HEAD   OF  FAMILY.* 


Nativity  of  head  of  family 

Per  family 

Per  individual 

Native  white: 
Foreign-born  ...           

$112 
III 

$29 

27 

Old  immigration: 
Canada  

IOQ 

27 

England  .  . 

125 

•JI 

117 

28 

IIP 

^O 

IOQ 

26 

New  immigration  : 
Austria-Hungary  

QO 

22 

Russia  

IOI 

2*\ 

Ttalv.. 

Q7 

2$ 

Another  fundamental  fact  which  has  been  noted  by  all 
students  of  the  housing  problem  is  that  the  wage-earner 
must  expend  more  for  rent  in  proportion  to  his  income 
in  a  large  city  than  in  a  small  town.  "Whereas  the 
average  outlay  for  rent  in  the  income  group  $400-^500  in 
the  city  is  $120  or  $125,  that  in  the  country  as  a  whole  is 
$86.54."*  The  significance  of  this  difference  lies  in  the  fact 

parison  because  the  averages  for  natives  in  the  South  may  be  reduced 
by  the  inclusion  of  negroes. 

1  Eighteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  Table  V.,  J. 
and  P.,  pp.  581  and  591  respectively. 

3  Streightoff:  The  Standard  of  Living,  p.  12. 


256  Immigration  and  Labor 

that  the  recent  immigrants  are  mostly  concentrated  in 
great  cities,  where  rent  is  high,  while  the  native  American 
workmen  predominate  in  small  towns  with  low  rents.  So 
when  the  article  produced  by  immigrant  labor  in  a  large 
city  must  compete  in  the  market  with  the  article  produced 
by  native  American  labor  in  a  small  country  town,  it  is  not 
the  recent  immigrant  that  is  able  to  underbid  the  native 
American  workman,  but  on  the  contrary  the  latter  is  in  a 
position  to  accept  a  cheaper  wage.1 

D.     Food 

The  Immigration  Commission  has  expressed  the  opinion 
that  "while  it  [the  new  immigration]  may  not  have  lowered 
in  a  marked  degree  the  American  standard  of  living  it  has 
introduced  a  lower  standard  which  has  become  prevalent 
in  the  unskilled  industry  at  large."2  This  conclusion  rests 
solely  on  the  meagre  statistics  which  were  collected  by  the 
Commission  on  the  subject  of  housing.  The  inconclusive- 
ness  of  these  statistics  has  been  shown  in  the  preceding 
section.  The  food  expenditure  which  absorbs  about  two 
fifths  of  the  workman's  income,3  was  not  included  by  the 
Commission  in  the  regular  program  of  its  statistical  investi- 
gation. Its  reports  contain  but  a  few  budgets  picked  up 
here  and  there  in  a  casual  way.  It  notes,  however,  "that, 
generally  speaking,  the  expenditures  for  meat  are  consider- 
ably higher  in  the  case  of  the  more  recent  immigrants  than 
in  the  case  of  the  older  immigrant  races  and  the  whites 
native-born  of  native  father."4  By  way  of  illustration 

1  The  Industrial  Commission  found  that  the  average  rent  paid  by  a 
family  of  a  garment  worker  in  the  city  was  $8.95  per  month  for  three 
rooms,  whereas  the  country  garment  workers  who  did  not  own  their 
houses  paid  on  an  average  $4.59  for  a  whole  house.  (Report  of  the 
Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  730.)  The  difference  in  rent  amount- 
ed to  $4.37  per  month,  i.  e.,  to  $1.00  per  week. 

*  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  i,  p.  39. 

*  Eighteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  p.  96. 

*  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  p.  356. 


The  Standard  of  Living  257 

the  following  items  are  quoted  from  some  of  the  published 
budgets. 

The  Magyar  is  a  great  consumer  of  meat.  A  butcher 
states  that  a  group  of  eight  Magyar  men  on  an  average 
eat  4  pounds  of  beef,  5  pounds  of  pork,  3  pounds  of 
Polish  sausage,  and  4  pounds  of  veal,  and  often  in  addi- 
tion, bacon  and  ham  and  other  cured  meats,  each  day. 
(Thus  on  an  average,  each  man  eats  2  pounds  of  meat 
each  day.) 

The  Bulgarians.  Among  them  bread  is  the  staple  article 
of  diet.  Each  man  will  consume  a  three-pound  loaf  of 
bread  per  day.  They  also  use  a  small  quantity  of  meat 
each  day,  usually  about  a  pound  per  man.  (The  experts 
of  the  Commission  consider  one  pound  a  day  per  man  "a 
small  quantity."  Few  boarding  houses  patronized  by 
university  professors  serve  meat  in  greater  quantities.) 

The  kind  of  food  consumed  daily  by  a  Bulgarian  couple 
was  about  as  follows1: 

Breakfast:  Tea,  cream,  cheese,  bread. 

Dinner:  Bread,  some  kind  of  meat  or  stew. 

Supper:  Bread,  meat  stew,  or  eggs. 

Presumably  these  budgets  were  published  by  the  Immi- 
gration Commission,  because  they  were  regarded  as 
representative. 

How  do  these  food  standards  compare  with  the  standard 
of  the  native  American  workingman?  We  may  accept  as 
the  official  definition  of  the  American  food  standard  the 
ration  fixed  by  act  of  xCongress  for  enlisted  men  on  the 
warships  of  the  American  navy.  A  specimen  bill  of  fare 
prepared  in  accordance  with  the  Navy  ration  prescribed 
by  Congress,  is  as  follows2: 

Breakfast :  Baked  beans,  tomato  catsup,  bread,  butter, 
coffee. 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission!  vol.  9,  pp.  82-96. 

a  Frank  J.  Sheridan:  "Italian,  Slavic,  and  Hungarian  Unskilled  Immi- 
grant Laborers  in  the  United  States."  Bulletin  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor , 
No.  72,  p.  466. 


258  Immigration  and  Labor 

Dinner:  Roast  beef,  brown  gravy,  string  beans,  sweet 
potatoes,  cottage  pudding,  vanilla  sauce,  bread,  coffee. 

Supper :  Cold  boiled  ham,  canned  peaches,  bread,  butter, 
tea. 

Judged  by  this  official  standard,  the  Hungarian  and 
Bulgarian  workmen,  with  their  daily  fare  of  one  or  two 
pounds  of  meat  per  man,  do  not  appear  to  have  "intro- 
duced a  lower  standard." 

Concerning  the  Italians,  material  for  a  comparison  of 
their  food  expenditure  with  that  of  native  white  Americans 
is  furnished  in  the  Report  of  the  Immigration  Commission 
on  iron  and  steel  manufacturing  in  the  South.  The  Italians 
whose  budgets  were  reported  were  all  unskilled,  earning 
from  $7.50  to  $12.50  per  week,  with  the  exception  of 
one  foreman  of  unskilled  laborers,  who  was  earning  $15.00 
and  had  an  1 8-year-old  boy  who  contributed  $7.00  a  week 
to  the  family  income.  The  Americans  were  all  skilled 
mechanics  with  a  weekly  income  of  from  $18.00  to  $25.00, 
except  one  carpenter  whose  wages  were  $12.00  a  week.  In 
Table  77  the  food  expenditures  of  these  families  have  been 
reduced  to  nutrition  units  per  man  per  day  according  to 
the  scale  adopted  by  the  United  States  Department  of 
Agriculture. x 

Although  the  budgets  secured  by  the  investigation  of 

TABLE  77. 

AVERAGE    EXPENDITURE    PER   MAN   PER   DAY   OF   SELECTED   FAMILIES  OF 

SOUTH   ITALIAN  AND  NATIVE  WHITE  WORKERS  IN  THE    IRON 

AND    STEEL    DISTRICT    OF    THE    SOUTH.3 

South  Italian          Cents  Native  White  Cents 

No.  3 41  No.  13 62 

No.  7 37  No.  10 36 

No.  6 36  No.  ii 36 

No.  2 30  No.    9 32 

No.  4 28  _  No.  12 29 

1  For  an  explanation  of  the  method  used,  see  Robert  Coit  Chapin : 
The  Standard  of  Living  among  Workingmen's  Families  in  New  York 
City,  pp.  125-126.  a  For  details  see  Appendix,  Table  XVII. 


The  Standard  of  Living  259 

the  Immigration  Commission  included  none  for  unskilled 
American  workmen  and  only  one  for  an  Italian  employed 
in  a  supervisory  capacity,  all  the  rest  relating  to  unskilled 
Italian  laborers,  yet  the  preceding  table  shows  that  the  food 
expenditure  of  the  South  Italian  laborer  is  the  same  as 
that  of  the  Southern  white  skilled  mechanic.1 

A  special  investigation  of  the  expenditures  of  single 
laborers  in  construction  camps  was  made  by  the  Bureau  of 
Labor  in  1906.  Fresh  and  salt  meats  were  found  to  be 
essential  parts  of  the  bills  of  fare  of  "Hungarian"  and 
"Slav"2  laborers.  The  same  information  was  obtained 
concerning  Hungarian  laborers  in  an  iron  and  steel  plant 
in  Ohio:  "They  used  beef  as  a  rule  three  times  a  day." 
At  Hansford,  Pa.,  the  bill  of  fare  of  Hungarians  and  Slavs 
on  week  days  was  as  follows : 

"Breakfast:  Bread  and  coffee.  Lunch:  Four  or  five 
sandwiches  (beef).  Dinner  in  the  evening:  Soup,  boiled 
or  roast  beef,  one  half  to  three  fourths  of  a  pound  a  head. 
Vegetables  and  coffee." 

According  to  Dr.  Roberts,  who  has  made  a  study  of  the 
conditions  of  labor  in  the  anthracite  coal  mines,  "the  Slavs 
have  good  bread  made  of  the  best  wheat  or  rye;  they  con- 
sume daily  about  a  pound  of  beef  for  boiling  or  of  fat  pork 
or  bologna  sausage,  a  quantity  of  potatoes,  cabbage,  milk, 
coffee,  and  beer,  butter  and  cheese,  sugar,  eggs,  and  fish." 

An  earlier  investigation  made  by  the  Bureau  of  Labor 
among  the  Slav  and  Hungarian  workmen  in  the  iron  mines 
of  Pennsylvania  showed  that,  in  1890,  their  bill  of  fare 
included  "two  pounds  of  meat  per  man  per  day,  one  for 
dinner  and  one  for  supper."3 

1  The  one  exceptionally  high  average,  62  cents  per  man  per  day,  was 
obtained  from  a  native  machinist,  who  was  employed  in  the  railroad 
shops  at  $23.00  per  week  and  had  only  his  wife  and  a  small  child  de- 
pendent upon  him. 

aThe  term  "Hungarian"  often  comprises  all  immigrants  from 
Hungary,  most  of  whom  belong  to  various  Slav  races.  Bulgarians  are 
also  "  Slavs." 

?  Bulletin  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor,  No.  72,  p.  475. 


260  Immigration  and  Labor 

With  respect  to  Italians,  a  distinction  must  be  drawn 
between  families  and  single  men,  or  married  men  whose 
families  have  remained  in  Italy.  It  is  learned  from  the 
investigation  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor,  that  men  who  are 
employed  in  construction  camps  live  principally  on  vege- 
tables and  reduce  their  expenditures  to  a  minimum,  in  an 
effort  to  save  as  much  as  possible  of  their  wages.  Italian 
families,  however,  do  not  differ  in  the  matter  of  food 
expenditures  from  families  of  other  nationalities  with  the 
same  income.  Beside  the  budgets  of  the  Immigration 
Commission  which  have  been  analyzed  above,  this  fact  is 
brought  out  in  Professor  Chapin's  monograph  on  the 
standard  of  living  among  New  York  workingmen,  based 
upon  a  canvass  of  391  families  in  the  summer  of  1907. 

The  following  table,  giving  the  classification  of  food 
expenditures  by  income  and  nationality,  is  compiled  from 
Professor  Chapin's  budget  statistics,  the  nationalities  being 
arranged  in  the  descending  order  of  their  average  expendi- 
ture per  man  per  day: 

TABLE  78. 

AVERAGE    FOOD    EXPENDITURES    PER    MAN    PER    DAY,  BY  INCOME   AND 
NATIONALITY1 

Income  group  and  nationality  Expenditure 

Cents 

$600  to  $699: 

Italian. 31.1 

Bohemian 25.5 

Teutonic 25.3 

Austrian,  Hungarian,  and  other  S.  E.  European  24.0 

Native  white 23.9 

Colored 23.5 

Russian 23.1 

Irish 20.8 

$700  to  $799: 

Italian 31.2 

Irish 30.0 

Teutonic 26.4 

Native  white 77 26.0 

Colored 25.7 

Austrian,  Hungarian,  and  other  S.  E.  European  25. 1 

Bohemian 24.3 

1  Robert  Chapin,  loc.  cit.,  p.  141. 


The  Standard  of  Living  261 

Income  group  and  nationality  Expenditure 

Cents 

$800  to  $899: 

Italian 33.9 

Native  white 32.4 

Bohemian 30.2 

Teutonic 29.5 

Irish 26.5 

$900  to  $999: 

Native  white 33.8 

Teutonic 31.6 

Italian 31.5 

Irish 31.4 

Austrian,  Hungarian,  and  other  Southeastern 

European 31.1 

Bohemian 28.5 

$1000  to  $1099: 

Native  white 38.1 

Italian 34.3 

Irish 32.0 

Teutonic 31.9 

The  Italians  in  every  income  group  expended  more  for 
food  than  the  Hungarians  and  Slavs.  In  every  income 
group  below  $900  per  year,  they  expended  more  for  food 
than  any  other  nationality,  including  native  Americans.1 
Among  the  families  with  an  income  from  $900  to  $1000,  the 
Italians  expended  as  much  as  the  Teutons  and  the  Irish, 
and  more  than  the  Bohemians  who  are  regarded  as  "desir- 
able" immigrants.  In  the  highest  group  the  Italian  ex- 
pended more  than  the  Celts  and  the  Teutons.  According 
to  Professor  Underhill,  of  Yale  University,  who  has  made 
a  study  of  the  nutritive  value  of  various  foods,  22  cents 
per  man  per  day  must  be  regarded  as  the  minimum  upon 
which  physical  existence  can  be  maintained.2  It  appears 
from  the  preceding  table,  that  the  Irish  were  the  only  race 
which  denied  themselves  that  minimum  when  their  earnings 
were  low.  To  sum  up,  Professor  Chapin's  analysis  gives  no 
indication  of  a  sliding  scale  of  racial  standards  of  living. 

1  All  the  native  Americans  but  one  were  sons  of  native  fathers,  or  of 
immigrants  from  Northern  and  Western  Europe.  The  one  exception 
was  the  son  of  a  Bohemian  father,  but  Bohemians  are  not  among  the 
"undesirable." — Chapin,  loc.  cit.,  p.  39. 

a  Chapin.  loc.  cit.,  p.  126. 


262 


Immigration  and  Labor 


The  most  extensive  investigation  of  its  kind,  comprising 
more  than  25,000  family  budgets,  was  made  by  the  United 
States  Bureau  of  Labor  ten  years  ago.  Table  79,  compiled 
from  its  report,  is  a  comparative  statement  of  food  expendi- 
tures of  "normal"  families  classified  by  annual  income  and 
country  of  birth.  A  "normal "  family,  it  will  be  remembered, 
is  one  supported  solely  by  the  earnings  of  husband  and 
father.  All  families  with  abnormally  low  incomes  (under 
$400  annually)  have  been  excluded  from  this  comparison. 
No  nationality  with  less  than  ten  families  in  each  income 
group  is  shown  separately,  but  all  foreign-born  are  included 
in  the  total. 

TABLE  79. 

EXPENDITURES   FOR   FOOD   IN   NORMAL  FAMILIES  WITH    AN  INCOME  FROM 
$4OO  TO  $7OO,  CLASSIFIED  BY  NATIVITY  AND  INCOME. r 


Income 

*4oo-$499 

*500-JS99 

*6oo-$699 

Native  white        .  . 

$212 

$24.5 

$260 

Foreign-born  

22Q 

255 

276 

Old  Immigration  : 
Canada  

228 

25O 

•fv 

267 

England  

21^ 

257 

27O 

Ireland  

21.1 

26l 

278 

Sweden  

217 

24.8 

271 

Germany.  . 

224. 

254. 

277 

New  Immigration: 
Austria-Hungary  
Russia  

252 

27.5 

•*O4- 

267 

27*1 

•/  / 

289 
2QT 

Italy  

214. 

•*/O 
275 

^91 
26l 

•*uo 

The  lowest  expenditures  for  food  within  the  same  income 
group  were  found  among  native  white  workmen  with 
incomes  under  $500  and  above  $600;  in  the  middle  group 
the  lowest  place  was  held  by  the  Italians,  the  next  to  the 
lowest  by  native  white  Americans.  The  highest  expendi- 

1  Eighteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  Table  V  D. 
PP-  560-563. 


The  Standard  of  Living  263 

tures  were  reported  by  the  Russians  in  the  two  groups  with 
incomes  of  $500  and  over.  In  the  lowest  income  group  the 
highest  expenditure  for  food  was  found  among  natives  of 
Austria-Hungary,  while  the  Russians  were  on  a  par  with 
the  English  and  above  the  Irish,  the  Canadians  and  the 
Germans.  In  the  other  two  groups,  the  natives  of  Austria- 
Hungary  expended  more  than  the  native  Americans  and 
more  than  any  of  the  "old  immigrants."  The  Italians 
expended  more  than  the  native  Americans  in  the  two 
extreme  groups,  and  only  $10.00  less  per  year,  i.  e.,  three 
cents  a  day  less  per  family  in  the  middle  group. 
It  is  possible  that  the  higher  expenditure  for  food  among  the 
"undesirable"  races  is  accounted  for  by  the  size  of  the 
family,  but  the  earnings  of  the  head  of  the  family  must 
cover  the  expense  of  supporting  all  its  members.  It  is 
therefore,  the  total  expense  rather  than  the  average  per  in- 
dividual that  may,  by  supposition,  affect  the  rate  of  wages. 
Still,  if  we  turn  to  the  comparative  table  of  the  same 
report  in  which  the  expenditure  for  food  of  native  and 
foreign  families  is  reduced  to  a  uniform  basis  of  units  of 
consumption,1  we  observe  the  same  tendency  as  shown  by 
the  comparison  of  total  expenditures.  We  learn  from  that 
table: 

(1)  That  among  the  families  having  no  children  the 
natives  of  Russia  expended  $145.24  per  one  hundred  units 
of  consumption,  while  the  natives  of  the  United  States 
expended  only  $119.85; 

(2)  That   among   the  families  with  two  children,  the 
Russians  expended  $107.35  as  against  $95.24  expended  by 
Americans ; 

(3)  That    among    families   with    three    children,    the 
average  expense  of  the  Russians  was  $108.11,  whereas 
the  Americans  expended  only  $85.06; 

(4)  That  an   Italian  family  with  one  child  expended 
on  an  average  $124.73,  while  an  American  family  of  the 

1  Eighteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Commission  of  Labor,  Table  V  D., 

p.  102. 


264  Immigration  and  Labor 

same  size  was  contented  with  $109.94,  a*1  English  family 
with  $107.19,  and  a  Norwegian  with  $87.53; 

(5)  That  an  Austro-Hungarian  family  without  children 
or  with  one  child  expended  more  for  food  than  a  Scotch 
family  of  the  same  size; 

(6)  That  an  Austro-Hungarian  family  with  two  children 
needed  $i  17.22,  while  a  native  American  family  of  the  same 
size  could  exist  on  $95.24,  and  an  English  family  on  $105.86; 

(7)  That    an    Austro-Hungarian    family     with     three 
children,  expended  $98.65  per  one  hundred  units  of  con- 
sumption as  compared  with  $85.00  expended  by  an  average 
American  family  of  the  same  size,  and  with  $85.20  expended 
by  an  average  English  family; 

(8)  That    an   Austro-Hungarian    family  with   four   or 
five  children,  expended  more  than  a  Scotch  family; 

(9)  That  the  Scotch  were  in  every  group  inferior  to 
the  Russians; 

(10)  That  English  families  with  less  than  five  children 
had  a  lower  expenditure  for  food   than  Russian  families 
of  equal  size.1 

These  budgets  have  been  quoted  here  as  the  best  evidence 
that  has  been  collected  on  the  comparative  standards  of 
living  of  native  and  foreign-bora  wage-earners.  Still, 
large  as  the  number  of  individual  families  included  in  the 
canvass  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor  may  look  at  a  superficial 
glance,  it  affords  too  narrow  a  foundation  for  nice  distinc- 
tions. Food  expenditures  vary  with  the  size  and  the 
income  of  the  family,  and  with  geographical  location 
affecting  the  prices  of  food-stuffs.  If  the  food  expendi- 
tures are  to  be  compared  by  nationality,  under  uniform 
conditions  as  to  location,  size  of  family,  and  income,  some 
of  the  groups  must  be  so  minute  as  to  preclude  the  possibility 
of  any  reliable  generalizations.  The  last  table  commented 
upon  may  serve  as  an  illustration;  among  the  foreign 
nationalities,  there  is  no  group  of  more  than  seventeen 

1  Eighteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Commission  of  Labor,  p.  631,  Table 
VIE. 


The  Standard  of  Living  265 

families,  while  most  of  the  groups  contain  less  than  ten 
families,  and  twenty-one  consist  of  only  one  family.  Varia- 
tions in  individual  cases,  however,  are  very  wide.  The 
only  conclusion  that  is  warranted  by  such  statistics  as  are 
available  is  a  negative  one,  viz.,  that  the  existence  of  a 
race  standard  of  living  determining  the  rate  of  wages  for 
every  race  is  not  proven.1  "The  actual  standard  that 
prevails  is  set  primarily  by  the  wages  paid  and  the  prices 
charged."  2 

E.     Clothing 

In  no  other  respect  is  the  assimilation  of  the  immigrant 
accomplished  so  rapidly  as  in  the  matter  of  dress.  The 
mandates  of  Herbert  Spencer's  "ceremonial  government" 
cannot  be  disobeyed.  "Many  of  the  recent  immigrants," 
says  the  Immigration  Commission,  "still  have  some  articles 
of  clothing  which  they  brought  with  them  from  Europe. 
Most  of  their  clothing,  however,  practically  all,  is  made  in 
this  country  and  purchased  by  them  here."  3  The  prices 
which  the  alien  workman  must  pay  in  an  American  depart- 
ment store  for  shoes  and  clothes  are  fixed,  not  by  his  im- 

1  In  a  later  work,  published  in  1917,  the  chief  expert  of  the  Immigra- 
tion Commission  seems  to  have  come  to  recognize  that  the  standard  of 
living  of  the  new  immigrants  is  not  lower  than,  but  different  from,  that 
of  the  native  wage-earners.  Whereas  the  immigrant  seeks  primarily 
physical  comfort,  with  the  sophisticated  American  worker  the  con- 
ventional plays  a  conspicuous  part  in  his  family  budget.  To  put  it  in 
Professor  Lauck's  words: 

"It  is  significant  to  note  that  all  newer  immigrants  spend  a  greater 
proportion  of  their  total  expenditures  for  food  than  do  the  native  wage- 
earners.  This  seems  to  be  due  to  the  fact  that  their  standard  of  living 
is  less  subject  to  demands  created  by  desires  other  than  for  food.  In  a 
sense,  their  standard  is  more  elemental.  They  are  more  free  to  satisfy 
their  natural  physical  wants,  and  less  restricted  than  native  wage- 
earners,  by  the  pressure  of  other  wants  upon  their  income.  In  the 
selection  of  their  diet  it  seems  to  be  the  consensus  of  observations  that  the 
newer  immigrant  has  the  advantage  over  the  native  wage-earners."  W.  Jett 
Lauck  and  Edgar  Sydenstricker:  The  Condition  of  Labor  in  American 
Industries,  p.  288. 

*  Chapin,  loc.  cit.t  pp.  249-250. 

8  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  9,  p.  8l. 


266  Immigration  and  Labor 

ported  individual  or  racial  psychology,  but  by  the  Ameri- 
can manufacturer,  the  American  railway  manager,  and  the 
American  department  store  proprietor,  every  one  of  them 
eager  to  make  an  American  profit,  in  order  to  maintain  an 
American  standard  of  living  for  himself. 

The  Immigration  Commission  secured  the  transcripts  of 
store  accounts,  which  showed  that  the  prices  paid  for  wear- 
ing apparel  by  immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe  were  the  same  as  those  advertised  in  Washington, 
D.  C.,  by  the  department  stores  and  tailor  shops  catering 
to  the  trade  of  government  clerks.1 

The  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor  has  published  com- 
parative statistics  showing  for  each  nationality  the  average 
annual  expenditure  for  clothing.  It  can  be  seen  at  a  glance 
that  the  expenditure  for  clothing  among  the  native,  as  well  as 
among  the  foreign-born,  increases  with  the  increase  of  their 
earnings.2  Whether,  or  not,  the  wage-earner's  standard  of 
living  determines  his  wages,  *.  e.,  whether,  or  not,  he  is  paid 
higher  wages  because  he  wears  better  clothes,  it  is  self-evident 
that  his  ability  to  buy  clothes  is  limited  by  his  earnings. 
A  comparison  of  race  standards  in  the  matter  of  clothing 
must  therefore  be  made  for  workmen  of  the  same  earning 
capacity.  Table  80  on  page  267  follows  the  arrangement 
of  Table  79. 

It  can  be  seen  from  Table  80  that  in  each  of  the  in- 
come groups  the  variations  of  expenditure  by  race  are 
confined  within  very  narrow  limits,  the  margin  between  the 
highest  and  lowest  expenditure  not  exceeding  $10.00  a  year. 
It  is  evident  that  such  a  margin  is  too  small  to  produce  an 
appreciable  effect  upon  the  rate  of  wages.3 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  9,  pp.  81,  84. 

*  Eighteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  Table  V,D. 

*  It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  that  the  numbers  of  families  in  each  group 
being  small,  the  variations  may  be  due  to  differences  in  the  size  of  the 
families,  in  geographical  location,  etc.   ~Even  the  earnings  may  vary 
within  each  income  group  as  much  as  $99.00  per  year.    Some  allowance 
must  be  made  for  the  inaccuracy  of  the  figures,  inasmuch  as  they  are  all 
mere  estimates. 


The  Standard  of  Living 

TABLE  80. 


267 


EXPENDITURE     FOR    CLOTHING    IN    NORMAL    FAMILIES     OF    UNSKILLED 
LABORERS,  CLASSIFIED  BY  INCOME  AND  NATIVITY.  x 


Country  of  birth 

Income 

^400-1499 

$500-*599 

J6oo-|699 

Native  

$53 

$66 

$79 

Foreign-born,  generally  .  .  . 
Old  Immigration: 

53 

57 

63 

61 

78 
82 

England  

58 

67 

75 

ci 

61 

7-1 

Sweden  

48 

64 

78 

Germany  

52 

63 

80 

New  Immigration  : 
Austria-Hungary.  .  .  . 
Russia  

57 

C2 

6l 
64 

82 

74. 

Italv  .  . 

C2 

cy 

7-1 

F.    Savings 

The  expenses  of  a  normal  family  for  housing,  food,  and 
clothing  amount  in  the  aggregate  to  about  three  fourths 
of  the  total  expenditure  for  all  objects.2  The  preceding 
analysis  has  shown  that  the  variations  of  these  principal 
items  of  a  workingman's  budget  are  not  affected  by  race. 
Table  81  on  page  268  points  in  the  same  direction.  It  can 
be  seen  from  the  comparative  figures  that  the  average  wage- 
earner's  family  of  every  nationality  lives  practically  up  to 
its  income.  A  very  small  margin  is  left  for  savings.  But 
while  the  native  workman  may  save  or  spend  at  pleasure,  the 
newly-arrived  immigrant  must  save  money. 

"  Before  the  immigrant  can  realize  any  return  from  his 
labor  in  the  form  of  American  wages,  he  must  incur  the 
following  expense  or  indebtedness,  for  even  if  one  or  all 
costs  are  prepaid  for  him  by  relative,  friend,  or  other  person, 
he  eventually  pays  them  all  by  deductions  from  his  wages 
or  otherwise: 

1  Eighteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  pp.  560-563. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  581,  Table  5K. 


268 


Immigration  and  Labor 


TABLE  81. 

SURPLUS  OF  INCOME  OVER  EXPENDITURE  OF  NORMAL  FAMILIES; 
CLASSIFIED   BY  COUNTRY   OF   BIRTH.1 


Country  of  birth 

Amount 

Per  cent  of  income 

Native                     

$  37 

5.6 

26 

4.  1 

Old  immigration: 

41 

6  I 

England  

40 

5.8 

38 

4..  2 

Germany  

2^ 

3.6 

I«5 

2.6 

New  Immigration: 
Italy                                    

2* 

4.6 

14. 

2.  5 

A 

0.6 

1.  Cost  of  preparation  at  his  home  in  Europe  for  the 
journey. 

2 .  Cost  of  transportation  from  his  home  to  the  European 
seaport. 

3.  Cost  of  emigrant  head  tax  to  his  Government. 

4.  Cost  of  immigrant  head  tax  to  the  United  States 
Government. 

5.  Cost  of  steamship  transportation,  European  port  to 
the  United  States. 

6.  Cost  of  labor  agency  for  securing  employment  at 
port  of  entry,  if  used. 

7.  Cost  of  transportation,  United  States  port  of  entry 
to  place  of  employment. 

8.  Cost  of  living  from  port  of  entry  to  place  of  destina- 
tion."2 

The  cost  of  items  3-5  and  7  is  further  on  estimated  at 
$40.00  for  a  single  Italian,  Slav,  or  Hungarian  immigrant. 
If  the  immigrant  has  left  wife  and  children  in  his  native 
country,  he  must  save  money  to  pay  their  passage.  In 
order  to  meet  these  demands  the  immigrant  must  curtail 
his  expenses  for  the  necessities  of  life.  This  is  accomplished 

1  Eighteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  p.  581, 
Tables  V,  J  and  K. 

9  Bulletin  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor,  No.  72,  pp.  411-412. 


The  Standard  of  Living  269 

in  various  ways.  Living  in  crowded  tenements  is  one  of 
them.  Co-operative  boarding,  which  has  been  given  the 
odious  name  of  "the  boarding  boss  system,"  enables  the 
Slav  laborer  to  reduce  his  board  bill  much  below  the  price 
the  individualistic  Anglo-Saxon  has  to  pay  in  a  boarding 
house,  though,  as  has  been  shown,  the  fare  under  the  co- 
operative system  is  at  least  as  wholesome  and  abundant  as 
in  an  average  boarding  house. 

The  fact,  however,  that  the  immigrant  who  has  no  family 
in  the  United  States  is  at  first  content  to  deny  himself  many 
comforts  does  not  warrant  the  apprehension  that  he  will 
be  satisfied  with  a  wage  just  sufficient  to  provide  the  bare 
necessities  of  life.  The  Italian  railroad  laborer  who  sub- 
sists on  vegetables  does  not  work  for  the  mere  price  of  his 
vegetables,  but  saves  about  80  per  cent  of  his  wages. 
"Ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  Italian  laborers  save  from 
$25.00  to  $30.00  of  their  wages  per  month.  For  eight 
months'  work  this  would  amount  to  over  $200  per  man."1 
It  is  a  matter  of  general  knowledge  that  large  sums  of 
money  are  annually  sent  home  by  the  immigrants.  A 
member  of  the  Immigration  Commission  who  visited  a 
Greek  mountain  village  from  which  two  hundred  immigrants 
had  gone  to  the  United  States  was  told  that  each  of  the 
men  sent  back  about  $200  annually.2  It  was  learned 
from  the  records  of  a  post-office  in  a  township  of  Russian 
Poland  that  thirty-seven  workmen  who  had  immigrated 
from  that  township  to  the  United  States  sent  home  in  1903 
the  sum  of  47,862  roubles,  i.  e.,  an  average  of  $665  per 
emigrant.3  That  these  are  not  isolated  cases  is  indicated 
by  the  number  of  international  money  orders  sent  from  the 
United  States  to  Europe,  which  averaged,  in  1907-1909, 
about  three  millions  a  year.4  Moreover,  hundreds  of 

1  Bulletin  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor,  No.  72,  pp.  469-470,  477,  481. 

*  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  4  (in  press). 

a  Reports  of  the  Warsaw  Statistical  Committee,  Bulletin  XXII.  K.  B. 
Vobly:  General  Analysis  of  the  Statistics  of  Migration  of  Workers  for 
Temporary  Employment  and  of  the  Statistics  of  Emigration,  p.  29. 

«  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  37,  p.  280. 


270  Immigration  and  Labor 

thousands  of  immigrants  annually  return  home,  and  their 
passage  must  be  paid  ,out  of  their  savings.  The  total 
amount  sent  abroad  by  immigrants  in  the  year  1907  is 
estimated  by  the  Immigration  Commission  at  $275,000,000. 
This  estimate  "does  not  take  into  account  the  large  sums 
carried  abroad  by  returning  immigrants."1 

A  better  idea  of  the  average  amount  an  immigrant  man- 
ages to  save  from  his  wages  can  be  gained  from  the  economic 
effects  produced  by  the  flow  of  American  money  into  the 
rural  districts  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  In  Greece 

much  of  the  money  sent  home  by  emigrants  is  for  the  payment  of  old 
debts  and  cancellation  of  mortgages,  a  considerable  part  ...  for 
deposits,  loans,  the  purchases  of  real  estate  or  the  improvement  of 
property  already  owned.  .  .  .  Many  houses  were  .  .  .  built  by  money 
sent  back  by  emigrants.  .  .  .  Usury  is  receding,  fleeing  from  the 
glitter  of  abundant  gold  which  has  inundated  towns  and  villages.  .  .  . 
Nor  is  it  surprising  that  the  rate  of  interest  should  have  fallen  from 
20,  15,  and  10  per  cent  to  6  and  5  per  cent.* 

Li  Southern  Italy,  those  who  return  from  America  pur- 
chase a  house  with  a  small  estate.  In  Austria-Hungary, 
the  enormous  influx  of  money  goes  partly  to  pay  old  debts 
and  to  bring  over  families,  but  most  of  it  to  support  rela- 
tives at  home,  to  invest  in  land,  to  build  homes,  to  make 
improvements,  and  to  buy  agricultural  machinery.  "The 
desire  of  the  returning  emigrant  to  invest  in  land  has  led  to 
a  considerable  increase  in  its  value,  particularly  in  Croatia, 
Galicia,  and  the  Slovak  district  of  Hungary.  ...  In 
Galicia  the  buying  of  large  estates  by  associations  of 
emigrants  has  become  a  common  practice.  Very  often 
from  50,000  to  90,000  acres  a  year  are  thus  bought  up  and 
subdivided  among  the  peasant  purchasers.  The  money  is 
either  contributed  from  the  savings  of  the  associated 
peasants  or  borrowed  from  friends  who  are  still  in  America. ' ' 
Reports  from  all  emigration  countries  concur  in  the  state- 
ment that  the  standard  of  living~of  the  peasants  who  have 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  37,  p.  277. 
» Ibid.,  vol.  4,  p.  413. 


The  Standard  of  Living  271 

returned  from  the  United  States  is  above  that  of  their 
neighbors.  The  roomy  cottages  built  by  them  with  money 
earned  in  the  United  States  are  in  striking  contrast  with  the 
surrounding  poverty  and  dirt.  In  short,  according  to  the 
Immigration  Commission,  the  savings  of  the  immigrants 
"  are  an  important  factor  in  promoting  the  general  economic 
welfare  of  several  European  countries. "  It  is  evident  that 
the  wages  of  the  immigrants  must  needs  be  sufficient  to 
enable  them  to  invest  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  in 
the  uplifting  of  the  economic  conditions  of  their  native 
countries,  after  paying  American  prices  for  all  necessities 
of  life.  Viewed  solely  with  an  eye  to  the  economic  interests 
of  the  American  wage-earner,  the  efforts  of  the  average 
immigrant  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  "to  live 
upon  the  basis  of  minimum  cheapness,  and  to  save  as  much 
as  possible,"  at  the  sacrifice  of  comfort,1  is  a  matter  of  no 
concern  to  his  competitors  in  the  labor  market.  Whether 
he  spends  his  wages  on  rent,  food,  and  clothing,  or  saves 
his  money  to  buy  steamship  tickets  for  his  family,  whether 
he  deposits  his  savings  in  a  local  bank,  or  sends  them  to 
his  parents  for  improving  the  home  farm,  his  wants  in  one 
case  are  as  great  and  as  imperative  as  in  the  other,  and  he 
must  demand  a  wage  which  will  enable  him  to  satisfy 
them.  Furthermore,  contrary  to  learned  opinion,  a  wage- 
earner  who  is  able  to  save  four  fifths  of  his  earnings  need 
not  accept  "employment  on  the  terms  offered  or  suffer  from 
actual  want, "  for  he  can  live  four  months  on  the  savings  of 
one,  and  is  therefore  "in  a  position  to  take  exception  to 
wages  or  working  conditions"2  a  great  deal  more  readily 
than  the  native  wage-earner  who  lives  to  the  limit  of  his 
income.  This  fact  has  been  proved  more  than  once  in 
recent  years  by  the  long  drawn  out  strikes  of  Southern  and 
Eastern  European  mine  and  factory  operatives. 

There  is  a  tendency  to  view  with  disapproval  "the  send- 
ing back  to  the  old  country  of  the  savings  of  the  immigrant," 
upon  the  old  Mercantilist  theory  that  every  dollar  invested 

1  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  183-184.  a  Ibid. 


272  Immigration  and  Labor 

by  him  in  his  home  country  is  a  loss  to  the  United  States: 
"America,  should  have  the  productive  influence  of  not  only 
the  labor  but  also  of  the  capital  made  from  the  savings."1 
The  same  objection  certainly  applies  with  far  greater  force 
to  the  investment  of  American  capital  in  foreign  industrial 
enterprises.  One  important  fact  is  overlooked  in  this 
objection,  viz.,  that  the  money  which  is  invested  in  the 
home  farm  provides  for  the  relatives  of  the  immigrant  who 
stay  in  the  old  country.  Were  that  money  invested  in  the 
United  States  they  would  have  to  be  brought  over  to  the 
United  States.  While  the  capital  invested  in  the  United 
States  would  be  increased,  the  supply  of  labor  would  like- 
wise be  increased.  Money  being  dearer  in  Europe  than  in 
the  United  States,  the  savings  that  are  ample  to  provide 
employment  for  the  immigrants'  relatives  at  home,  would 
be  insufficient,  if  invested  in  American  industries,  to  keep 
an  equal  number  of  persons  employed  in  the  United  States. 
Their  immigration  would  accordingly  tend  to  increase  the 
supply  of  labor  out  of  proportion  to  the  demand. 

The  only  economic  interests  affected  in  a  real,  not  in  an 
imaginary  way,  by  the  thrifty  habits  ("the  low  standard 
of  living")  of  the  recent  immigrant,  is  the  mercantile 
business  which  seeks  the  trade  of  the  wage-earner  as  a 
consumer.  With  many  manufacturing  and  mining  concerns 
the  commissary  is  an  important  part  of  the  industry. 

In  fact,  [says  the  Immigration  Commission]  according  to  the 
statements  of  some  of  the  small  operators,  commissaries  as  a  rule  return 
not  only  a  20  per  cent  net  profit  in  normal  times  to  the  company,  but 
the  system  goes  so  far  as  to  largely  determine  the  race  of  employees. 
In  certain  cases  it  was  stated  that  negroes  were  preferred  because  their 
improvident  habits  prevented  them  from  being  able  to  live  on  a  cash 
income,  paid  monthly,  and  thus  forced  them  to  draw  their  wages  weekly, 
and  even  daily,  in  the  form  of  commissary  checks  or  store  credits. 
Currency  payments  were  made  monthly  partly  for  this  purpose.  As  a 
result,  the  negroes  are  always  a  little  in  debt  to  the  commissaries.  .  .  . 
Their  wants  are  confined  to  the  supply-x>f  goods  furnished  by  the  com- 
missaries, with  the  exception  of  whiskey,  and  they  have  no  funds  for 

1  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.t  p.  16. 


The  Standard  of  Living  273 

any  other  purpose  than  that  of  bare  subsistence  ....  For  the  same 
reason  these  employers  do  not  encourage  immigrant  laborers,  and  in 
some  cases  refuse  to  employ  them  altogether.  The  immigrant  exhibits 
a  strong  tendency  to  get  his  wages  in  cash  and  to  live  on  the  lowest 
level  possible  to  maintain  subsistence.  .  .  .  He  seeks  the  cheapest 
places.  ...  A  careful  and  detailed  inquiry  into  a  comparison  of 
prices  in  the  commissaries  and  in  the  city  markets  and  groceries 
revealed  a  slight  increase  in  the  general  run  of  prices  in  the  former  over 
the  latter.1 

The  Croatians  are  good  livers  in  comparison  with  the  other  foreign 
races,  and  they  do  not  stint  themselves  in  food  or  drink  [say  Professors 
Jenks  and  Lauck].  Although  extravagant,  they  do  not,  however, 
spend  as  much  as  the  negroes,  who  loiter  about  the  commissaries 
looking  for  something  for  which  to  spend  their  money.  The  Croatians 
know  what  they  want  and  buy  it  freely,  but  if  there  is  a  surplus  of  their 
wages  it  is  saved.  The  Italians,  living  as  they  do,  very  cheaply,  buy 
little  from  the  commissaries.  In  a  general  way  the  laborers  are  required 
to  patronize  the  commissaries3.  .  .  . 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  proprietor  of  the  commis- 
sary store,  an  immigrant  with  a  "low  standard  of  living," 
who  buys  in  the  cheapest  store,  or  saves  his  money  instead 
of  leaving  it  in  the  commissary,  is,  naturally  enough, 
"undesirable." 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission^  vol.  9,  p.  190. 
*  Jenks  and  Lauck,  he.  tit.,  p.  176. 


CHAPTER  XI 

HOME  OWNERSHIP 

of  homes  by  wage-earners  has  been 
advocated  as  a  proposition  of  practical  social  reform, 
ever  since  the  condition  of  labor  has  been  recognized  as 
a  distinct  social  problem.  The  Immigration  Commission 
has  given  a  prominent  place  in  its  investigation  to  home 
ownership  among  immigrant  races  on  the  ground  that  "the 
proportion  of  the  families  in  a  given  group  of  workmen  who 
live  in  homes  owned  by  themselves  may  fairly  be  regarded 
as  an  indication,  at  least,  of  the  social  and  industrial 
progress  of  the  group."1 

The  Commission  fully  realizes  "that  the  wage-earner  is 
living  and  working  in  a  large  urban  or  industrial  center 
where  the  acquisition  of  real  estate  is  beyond  his  resources, " 
while  in  small  mining  towns  "the  industrial  worker  is 
practically  not  permitted  to  buy  a  home,  but  must  live  in  a 
house  owned  by  the  operating  company."2  The  mining 
companies  find  it  "a  better  policy  to  retain  the  houses 
because  of  large  profits  arising  from  rent  payments  and  for 
the  additional  reason  that  mine  workers  may  be  evicted  in 
the  event  of  a  strike."3  Moreover,  the  ownership  of  a 
home,  even  when  within  the  reach  of  the  wage-earner, 
often  does  not  pay  as  an  investment : 

If  an  employee  should  invest  in  a  home  near  his  work  and  for  any 
reason  he  should  be  thrown  out  of  work,  the  property  would  not  be 
valuable,  because  there  are  no  other  industries  near  in  which  he  could 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  7,  p.  267. 
* Ibid.,  vol.  I,  p.  467.  a  Ibid.,  vol.  6,  p.  452. 

274 


Home  Ownership  275 

find  employment.  The  coal  mines  often  have  periods  when  work  is 
irregular,  or  suspend  operations  for  months  at  a  time,  which  facts  tend 
to  make  coal-mining  labor  migratory.1 

These  conditions  are  not  peculiar  to  coal  mining  alone, 
but  exist  generally.2  Nevertheless,  after  all  that  is  said, 
the  Commission  regards  "the  number  and  percentage  of 
families  owning  their  homes,"  as  indications  of  "racial 
inclinations  toward  the  acquisition  of  property." 3  It  is 
noted  that  "the  recent  immigrant  has  no  property  or  other 
restraining  interests  which  attach  him  to  a  community," 
and  the  fact  is  officially  recorded  among  the  "salient  char- 
acteristics of  the  recent  immigrant  labor  supply,"  4  This  is 
an  error.  As  far  back  as  1878,  a  noted  New  York  philanthro- 
pist spoke  in  almost  the  same  terms  of  the  immigrants  of  his 
day,  who  were  mostly  Irish  and  Germans: 

They  do  not  own  the  house  nor  any  part  of  it,  nor  have  any  interest 
in  it.  ...  The  general  effect  of  the  system  is  the  existence  of  a  prole- 
taire  class,  who  have  no  interest  in  the  permanent  well-being  of  the 
community,  who  have  no  sense  of  home,  and  who  live  without  any  deep 
root  in  the  soil.5 

It  is  obvious  that  the  subject  of  home  ownership  is  viewed 
in  these  opinions  from  the  standpoint  of  a  middle-class 
resident  of  a  rural  community,  not  from  that  of  a  wage- 
earner.6  A  farmer,  a  shopkeeper,  or  a  professional  man,  is 

lReports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  7,  p.  206. 

8An  English  writer  who  would  encourage  "the  acquirement  by  work- 
ingmen  of  their  homes,"  recognizes  that  "a  difficulty  exists  in  the  fact 
that  a  large  portion  of  the  working  classes  are  migrating,  owing  to  the 
changes  and  irregularities  of  their  means  of  livelihood." — T.  L.  Worth- 
ington:  Dwellings  of  the  People,  (26.  edition,  1901),  p.  60. 

^Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I ,  p.  467.  This  view  is  ex- 
pressed with  all  due  "qualifications,"  "reservations,"  and  "limitations." 

*Ibid.,  pp.  498,  500 — "This  characteristic  has  both  a  good  and  a  bad 
influence  ....  Probably,  the  bad  effect  of  this  characteristic  is  greater 
than  the  good,  all  things  considered."  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit,  p.  185. 

^Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  459. 

*"The  idea  that  the  working  man  must  buy  his  dwelling  rests  upon 
the  reactionary  conception  that  the  condition  created  by  modern  large 
scale  industry  is  a  pathological  degeneration,  and  that  society  must 
be  forcibly  steered  against  the  stream  which  has  been  running  for  over 


276  Immigration  and  Labor 

by  the  nature  of  his  occupation  attached  to  a  certain  com- 
munity. With  him  the  ownership  of  a  home  is  a  profitable 
investment.  Considered,  however,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  wage-earner  who  lives  "in  a  town  dominated  by  a 
single  industry,  home  ownership  would  seriously  hinder  his 
defense  of  his  rights  in  a  disagreement  with  his  employers."  l 
In  a  small  town,  where  many  of  the  workmen  own  their  homes 

trade-unionism  means  but  little  [to  them].  If,  however,  trade-unionism 
becomes  a  factor  and  organization  follows,  with  accompanying  demands 
for  shorter  hours  and  more  pay,  these  men  would  think  long  and  well  of 
their  little  homes  .  .  .  before  engaging  upon  a  strike,  the  outcome  of 
which  may  possibly  mean  the  loss  of  many  things  they  greatly  prize. 
It  seems  that  the  employers  have  the  upper  hand.8 

A  wage-earner,  on  the  contrary,  who  has  no  property 
interests  attaching  him  to  a  certain  community,  is  "free 
to  follow  the  best  industrial  inducements."5 

Inasmuch,  however,  as  the  ownership  of  a  home  is  re- 
garded "as  a  mark  of  thrift"  4  it  is  instructive  to  compare 
the  extent  of  home  ownership  at  present  and  in  the  past,  be- 
fore "the  Slav  invasion,"  and  still  earlier,  before  immigration 
became  a  social  factor  in  the  United  States. 

As  early  as  1790,  when  Boston  had  a  population  of  18,320, 
the  average  number  of  families  to  each  house  in  the  town 
was  1.46,  which  means  that  at  least  one  third  of  all  Boston 
families  lived  in  rented  houses,  even  on  the  assumption 
that  all  one-family  houses  were  occupied  by  their  owners 
and  that  in  the  two-family  houses  one  dwelling  was  occupied 
by  the  owner.  Half  a  century  later,  at  the  city  census  of 
1845,  the  proportion  of  home  owners  in  Boston  was  found 
to  be  only  17.5  per  cent.4  The  population  of  Boston  was 
then  only  114,000,  and  the  percentage  of  foreign-born  and 

a  century,  into  a  condition  .  .  .  which  is  generally  nothing  but  an  ideal- 
ized restoration  of  the  moribund  small  handicraft." — Friedrich  Engels: 
Zur  Wohnungsfrage. 

1  Streightoff,  loc.  cit.,  p.  84.  »  Pratt,  loc.  tit.,  p.  99. 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  p.  500. 

4  Ibid.,  vol.  6,  p.  451.  *  Census  of  Boston,  1845,  p.  55. 


Home  Ownership  277 

their  children  born  in  Boston  was  32.61. «  In  other  words, 
there  were  67.39  per  cent  of  native  Americans  of  native 
parentage,  of  whom  at  most  only  one  fourth  owned  their 
homes,  even  if  there  was  not  a  single  home  owner  among  the 
foreign-born.  The  percentage  of  home  owners  has  since 
slightly  increased,  as  shown  in  the  following  table: 

TABLE  82. 

PER  CENT  OF  HOME  OWNERS  IN  THE  POPULATION  OF  BOSTON,  1845-1900.* 

Year  Per  cent 

1845  17-5 

1890  18.43 

1900  18.9 

The  most  thorough-going  statistical  study  of  home  owner- 
ship in  the  United  States  was  made  at  the  census  of  1890. 
The  data  for  that  year  reflect  the  standard  of  living  of 
native  Americans  at  a  time  when  it  could  not  have  been 
affected  by  immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe. 
It  will  be  seen  from  Table  83  on  page  278  that  of  all 
American  householders  of  native  stock  who  were  living  in 
cities  with  a  population  of  from  50,000  to  250,000  in  1890, 
only  a  little  over  one  fourth  owned  their  homes;  in  larger 
cities  the  percentage  was  still  smaller.  And  it  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  these  percentages  relate  to  people  in  all 
walks  of  life,  not  to  wage-earners  alone.  The  prevailing 
"American  standard"  in  cities  is  accordingly  the  standard 
of  a  tenant,  not  that  of  a  home  owner. 

1  Census  of  Boston,  pp.  26  and  37.  The  percentage  of  persons  born  of 
foreign  parents  in  the  United  States  outside  of  Boston  could  not  have 
affected  the  situation,  as  appears  from  the  fact  that  of  the  native  children 
of  foreign  parents  there  were  10,105  under  the  age  of  20  and  only  80  over 
the  age  of  20.  Evidently,  immigration  was  new  and  the  native  children 
of  foreign  parents  were  still  very  young. 

a  Report  on  Farms  and  Homes  in  the  United  States  at  the  XI.  Census, 
p.  32.  XII.  Census,  Population,  Part  II.,  Table  CVL,  p.  ccv. 

a  The  population  of  Suffolk  County  representing  the  economic,  though 
not  the  municipal,  Boston,  included  19.36  per  cent  home-owners. 


278 


Immigration  and  Labor 


TABLE  83. 

PERCENTAGE    OF    NATIVE    WHITE     HOME    OWNERS    TO    ALL    OCCUPANTS, 

CLASSIFIED  BY  PARENT  NATIVITY,  IN  CITIES  WITH  A  POPULATION 

OF  50,000  AND  OVER.1 


Population 

Per  cent  of  1 

tome  owners 

Native  parentage 

Foreign  parentage 

50,000  to  250,000  

27.6 

26.4 

250,000  and  over  

21.5 

17.7 

This  fact  is  not  due,  however,  to  a  racial  disinclination 
of  the  American  of  native  stock  toward  the  acquisition  of 
property,  but  to  the  fact  that  the  value  of  a  house  is  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  majority  of  householders.  The  proof  will 
be  found  in  Table  84: 

TABLE  84. 

PERCENTAGES  OF  HOME  OWNERS  CLASSIFIED  BY  VALUE  OF  HOMES,  1890." 


United 

Cities  classifie 

d  by  population 

Value 

States 

8,000  to  100,000 

100,000  and  over 

Under  $500  

O.6^ 

O.2I 

O.O4 

$500  and  under  $1000  

3.56 

2.46 

0.61 

$1000  and  under  $2500  

17.41 

17.04. 

Q.24 

$2500  and  under  $5000  

22.^5 

2e  Q"* 

17.05 

$5000  and  over  

•"•oo 
S6.o^ 

^•46 

72.l6 

More  than  one  half  of  all  homes  in  the  United  States  were 
valued  in  1890  at  $5000  and  over;  in  cities  with  a  population 
of  100,000  and  over  the  proportion  of  homes  of  the  same 
value  was  nearly  three  fourths. 

The  relative  number  of  home  owners  decreased  with 
the  growth  of  the  density  of  population  and  the  resulting 

1  Farms  and  Homes,  XI.  Census,  Table  73,  p.  204. 
'  Ibid.,  Table  39,  p.  87 


Home  Ownership 


279 


increase  of  the  value  of  real  estate,  as  shown  in  Table  85, 
where  all  States  and  Territories  are  divided  into  two  areas : 

I.  With  ratio  of  home  owners  to  total  families  above  the 
average  for  the  United  States; 

II.  With  ratio  of  home  owners  to  total  families  below 
the  average  for  the  United  States. 

TABLE  85. 

HOME  OWNERSHIP  AND  VALUE  OF   REAL  ESTATE  IN  AREAS  WITH    RATIO 
OF  HOME  OWNERS  TO  TOTAL  FAMILIES  ABOVE  (I)  AND  BELOW    (II) 
THE  AVERAGE, 


Areas 

Per  cent  of  home 
owners 

Population 
per  square  mile 

Average  value  per  home 
(including  incumbrances) 

I 
II 

46.34 
30-53 

12 

53 

$  2656 

3828 

To  be  sure,  some  of  the  homes  were  incumbered  (three 
eighths  of  all  homes  in  cities  with  a  population  of  100,000 
and  over,  and  less  in  smaller  cities  and  towns2),  but  the 
average  incumbrance  in  the  United  States  covered  only  37.7 
per  cent  of  the  value.3  The  average  equity  of  the  owner 
ranged  from  $3200  in  cities  with  a  population  of  100,000 
and  over,  down  to  $1400  in  settlements  of  less  than  8000 
inhabitants.4 

Age  is  an  important  factor  in  home  ownership ;  under  the 
age  of  forty-five  the  majority  were  tenants  (see  Diagram 
XVII) . s  This  was  the  rule  in  every  section  of  the  country, 
in  those  where  the  percentage  of  foreign-born  was  high,  as 
well  as  in  those  where  it  was  low.  The  percentage  of  home- 
owners increases  with  advancing  years,  and  it  is  only  in  old 
age  that  a  majority  become  home-owners.  It  takes  a 
lifetime  of  savings  to  acquire  a  home.  Now  it  must  be 
remembered  that  most  of  the  immigrants  are  under  the 

1  Farms  and  Homes,  XI.  Census,  Table  16,  p.  42. 

2  Ibid.,  Table  14,  p:34. 

J  Ibid.,  Tables  104-106,  pp.  421-428.      « Ibid.,  Table  38,  pp.  83-86. 
s  Ibid.,  p.  224,  Diagram  32. 


280 


Immigration  and  Labor 


DIAGRAM  XVII.    PER  CENT  RATIO  OF  HOME  OWNERS  AND  TENANTS  TO 


UNDER  £5  YEARS. 
15, TO  td 


UNITED  STATES. 

o         10        to       SO       40       So       *0      la        to      -90 


30 


45 
50 

55 


34 
39 
44 
49 


59 


60  YEARS*  OVER: 


YSSSSSSSSS/S/SS/SA 


TMC  58  CITIES  or So.ooo  POPULATION 

UNDER  25  YEARS. 
15  TO    *9 

E 

40 


Owners 


Tenants 


age  of  forty-five  on  arrival.  It  was  found  in  1890,  when 
immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  was  insig- 
nificant, that  "by  far  the  principal  portion  of  the  foreign- 
born  owners  of  farms  and  homes  have  been  in  this  country 
fifteen  years  and  over."1  Of  all  industrial  workers  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe,  however,  who  were  covered 
by  the  investigation  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  only 
from  0.9  per  cent  (Roumanians)  to  18.2  per  cent  (Russian 
Jews)  had  been  in  the  United  States  fifteen  years  or  over.2 
According  to  the  standard  set  by  the  immigrants  fromNorth- 


and  Homes,  XI.  Census,  p.  163. 
*  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.t  p.  477. 


ALL  HOME  FAMILIES,  CLASSIFIED  BY  AGE  PERIODS  AND  BY  GEOGRAPHI- 
CAL DIVISIONS,  1890. 


NORTH  CENTRAL. 


UND£K*5  YEARS. 
15   TO    19 

•  34  • 
33  *  33  - 
40  -  44  - 
45  -  43  " 
30-34 
55  -  53  • 
*0  YEARS  &0VER; 


30      40 


*o      TO.      90.     ft    10* 


UNDER  JtS  YEARS. 
*3  TO   13 
30       ^    34 
33     •     3d 


WESTERN. 

,0        10        to       JO       40        50      *0       70 


90       100 


NORTH  ATLANTIC. 

o         10       fiO        SO       40        SO       60        70        *0        90       U 


Tenants 


281 


282 


Immigration  and  Labor 


ern  and  Western  Europe,  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  had  not 
been  long  enough  in  the  United  States  to  have  raised  suf- 
ficient funds  for  buying  real  estate. 

The  inference  drawn  from  the  statistics  of  home  owner- 
ship in  1890  by  the  authors  of  the  census  report  "is  that 
home  tenancy  is  increasing  in  the  whole  country  as  the 
urban  population  becomes  numerically  a  more  important 
element  of  the  population."1  The  old  American  standard 
which  found  its  expression  in  the  one-family  residence 
retreats  before  the  apartment  house.  This  tendency 
asserts  itself  even  among  the  well-to-do  who  could  afford 
to  buy  a  home  for  the  rental  they  pay  for  a  fashionable 
apartment.  The  rate  of  the  change  can  be  observed  in  a 
city  like  Washington,  which  has  but  a  small  foreign  popula- 
tion.2 A  count  of  the  houses  and  apartments  advertised 
in  the  Washington  Star  on  the  last  Saturday  in  July,  1900 
and  1910,  for  rent  to  white  tenants  brought  the  following 
results: 

TABLE  86. 

NUMBER  OF  HOUSES  AND  APARTMENTS  ADVERTISED  FOR  RENT  TO 

WHITE  TENANTS  IN  WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  ON  THE  LAST 

SATURDAY  IN  JULY,   IQOO  AND  IQIO. 


For  rent 

1900 

1910 

Per  cent  of  increase 

One-family  houses  

882 

1169 

•j-» 

Apartment  houses  

64 

580 

806 

The  number  of  apartment  houses  which  advertised  apart- 
ments for  rent  increased  ninefold  within  ten  years,  while 
the  number  of  one-family  houses  increased  only  by  one  third. 

1  Farms  and  Homes,  XL  Census,  p.  54. 

3  The  ratio  of  the  foreign-born  and  their  children  to  the  population  of 
Washington,  D.  C.,  was  only  20.6  per  cent  in  1900  and  21  per  cent  in 
1910.  XIII.  Census,  vol.  i,  p.  150. 


Home  Ownership  283 

It  is  clear  from  this  example  that  the  tendency  toward  the 
apartment  house  or  tenement  house  has  no  connection  with 
immigration.  It  is  in  line  with  the  general  tendency 
toward  concentration  characteristic  of  modern  times.1 

1  This  has  come  to  be  recognized  by  industrial  experts.  In  the 
opinion  of  Mr.  Henry  Wright,  an  architect  who  during  the  war  was 
town  planner  of  Emergency  Fleet  Corporation  towns  and  has  since 
made  a  study  of  housing  conditions  for  the  community  planning 
committee  of  the  American  Institute  of  Architects,  the  time  has  come 
for  "a  scientific  revolution  of  our  methods  of  building  houses."  Speak- 
ing of  the  present  housing  situation  to  a  writer  for. the  Globe  of  New 
York,  he  was  quoted  (in  the  issue  of  June  I,  1920)  to  have  said: 

"  '  Own  Your  Own  Home'  campaigns  to-day  are  essentially  buncombe. 
They  cannot  provide  houses  for  the  laboring  classes;  under  present 
conditions  no  one  belonging  to  the  laboring  classes  can  afford  to  'own 
his  own  home.'  .  .  .  We  must  do  away  with  the  old  sales  system  and  its 
single  lot,  single  family  house,  and  surplus  street,  and  come  to  group 
and  multi-family  house  building  with  its  savings  of  billions  for  the 
country  in  street  maintenance,  constructional  costs,  and  proportion 
of  land  to  houses. " 


CHAPTER  XII 

EFFECT  OF  IMMIGRATION  ON  WAGES 

THAT  wages  in  many  occupations  are  barely  sufficient 
to  provide  for  the  necessities  of  life,  has  been  estab- 
lished by  all  investigations  of  the  cost  of  living.  That 
unskilled  labor  receives  a  lower  wage  than  skilled  labor,  is 
a  truism.  That  the  standard  of  living  of  unskilled  laborers 
must  be  lower  than  that  of  skilled  mechanics,  is  the  neces- 
sary consequence  of  the  difference  in  the  rates  of  their 
compensation.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  the  skilled  me- 
chanics are  mostly  native  Americans  and  older  immigrant^, 
whereas  the  unskilled  laborers  are  mostly  new  immigrants, 
the  average  man  with  a  prejudice  against  the  foreigner 
overlooks  the  difference  in  the  grade  of  the  service  rendered, 
and  jumps  to  the  conclusion  that  the  American  mechanic 
commands  higher  wages  because  he  insists  upon  maintain- 
ing an  American  standard  of  living,  whereas  the  foreign 
unskilled  laborer  is  willing  to  accept  lower  wages,  because  he 
is  satisfied  with  a  lower  standard  of  living. 

It  has  been  shown,  however,  that  the  standard  of  living 
ofjbhe^new  immigrants  is  not  lower  than  that  of 


^ 

decessors  in  the  same  grades  of  employment,  or  than  that 
of  the  present  generation  of  native  Americans  engaged  in 
unskilled  labor  in  the  South,  where  there  is  practically 
no  competition  of  immigrant  labor.  Granting  that  the 
standard  of  living  determines  the  rate  of  wages,  there  is 
no  escape  from  the  conclusion  that  thejyagesjof  the  new 
immigrants  can  not  be  lower  than  those  of  the  pasfgenera- 
tion  of  immigrants  wEoTm  their  day  were  engaged  in  un- 

284 


Effect  of  Immigration  on  Wages      285 

skilled  labor.  In  other  words  the  logical  deduction  from 
the  premises  is,  that  the  new  immigration  could  not  have 
depressed  the  rate  of  wages. 

On  the  other  hand,  though  the  standard  of  living  of  the 
native  or  Americanized  foreign-born  wage-earners  be  higher 
than  that  of  the  new  immigrants,  this  difference  is  not 
necessarily  indicative  of  a  higher  rate  of  wages:  the  higher  \  • 
standard  may  be  maintained  on  the  earnings  of  several 
members  of  the  family. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  present-day  industrial  families  in  the  United 
States  find  it  necessary  to  add  to  the  earnings  of  the  husband  through 
the  employment  of  wives  and  children  outside  the  home  and  the  keeping 
of  boarders  and  lodgers  within  the  home.  The  native  American  and 
older  immigrant  employees  maintain  an  independent  form  of  family 
life,  but  the  earnings  of  the  heads  are  supplemented  by  the  wages  of 
the  wives  and  children.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Southern  and  Eastern 
European  families  have  recourse  to  the  keeping  of  boarders  and  lodgers 
as  a  supplementary  source  of  family  income.  .  .  .  That  contributions 
of  children  are  less  general  in  the  latter  class  of  families  is  probably  due 
to  the  fact  that  children  of  these  households  have  not  in  any  consider- 
able proportions  reached  working  age. x 

It  is  argued  that  the  newly-arrived  immigrant  must  have 
work  at  once  and  is  therefore  eager  to  accept  any  terms: 

Another  salient  fact  in  connection  with  the  recent  immigrant  labor 
supply  has  been  the  necessitous  condition  of  the  newcomers  upon  their 
arrival  in  America's  industrial  communities.  Immigrants  from  the 
South  and  East  of  Europe  have  usually  had  but  a  few  dollars  in  their 
possession  when  their  final  destination  in  this  country  has  been  reached. 
.  .  .  Consequently,  finding  it  absolutely  imperative  to  engage  in 
work  at  once,  they  have  not  been  in  a  position  to  take  exception  to 
wages  or  working  conditions,  but  must  obtain  employment  on  the  terms 
offered  or  suffer  from  actual  want. a 

Still,  the  investigations  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of 
Labor  have  shown  that  only  one  half  of  the  families  of  na- 
tive American  wage-earners  (51.25  per  cent)  are  able  to 
save,  whereas  one  third  (32.2  per  cent)  are  barely  able  to 

1  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  157-158,  161. 
3  Ibid.,  pp.  183-184. 


286  Immigration  and  Labor 

make  both  ends  meet,  and  about  one  in  every  seven  (15.55 
per  cent)  have  a  deficit. x  Only  after  the  annual  income  of 
the  native  American  wage-earner  with  a  normal  family  has 
reached  $700  is  there  a  surplus  left  over  average  expenses.2 
Making  allowance  for  unemployment,  an  annual  income  of 
$700  may  be  taken  as  equivalent  to  about  $2.50  a  day, 
which  is  approximately  the  dividing  line  between  skilled 
and  unskilled  labor.  It  thus  appears  that  one  half  of  the 
native  American  wage-earners,  or  roughly  speaking  all 
unskilled  laborers,  have  no  savings  and  are  therefore  in  the 
same  "necessitous  condition"  as  "the  newcomers  upon  their 
arrival":  they  "must  obtain  employment  on  the  terms 
offered  or  suffer  from  actual  want. "  The  terms  of  competi- 
tion are  therefore  not  changed  by  the  arrival  of  the 
immigrant. 

It  is  further  argued  that  the  immigrant  is  at  a  particular 
disadvantage,  being  a  stranger  in  a  strange  land  : 

The  immigrant  unfamiliar  with  American  conditions,  often  not  even 
understanding  the  language  in  which  he  must  make  his  contract,  and 
ignorant  of  the  working  methods  which  are  new  to  him,  while  naturally 
preferring  the  best  that  he  can  get,  is  often  willing  to  work  under 
conditions  and  at  wages  which  would  not  appeal  to  American  working- 
men,  but  which  to  him  seem  ample  and  satisfactory,  because  they  are 
so  much  better  than  he  has  ever  known  before.  Moreover,  when  the 
wage-earner  is  one  unfamiliar,  as  are  most  immigrants,  with  American 
conditions,  he  is  likely  to  be  eager,  perhaps  too  eager,  to  secure  work  at 
almost  any  wage  above  that  affording  a  mere  subsistence.  Usually  he 
is  not  in  touch  with  the  American  workingman  or  with  trade  unions, 
and  does  not  know  what  he  could  do  by  proper  effort.  He  is  not  a 
member  of  their  trade  organization,  and  cannot  bargain  through  officials 
who  know  the  conditions.  Moreover,  if  he  is  one  who  is  expecting  as 
soon  as  possible  to  return  to  his  home  country  with  his  savings,  what  he 
dreads  most  of  all  is  lack  of  work,  and  he  is  willing  to  take  low  wages 
and  bad  working  conditions,  rather  than  be  idle  even  for  a  short  time 
and  see  any  of  his  savings  disappear.  In  the  large  majority  of  cases, 
doubtless,  the  immediate  inducement  to  the  emigrants  to  leave  home  and 
sail  for  America  comes  in  the  form  of  a  personal  letter  from  friends  or 
members  of  their  own  families  already  in  t^e  United  States.  It  is  thus 

1  Sixteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  p.  68. 
3  Ibid.,  p.  592. 


Effect  of  Immigration  on  Wages      287 

that  they  learn  of  the  much  higher  wages  and  the  better  living  condi- 
tions ;  and  usually  they  are  practically  sure  of  a  job  almost  as  soon  as 
they  arrive,  at  wages  which  seem  to  them  more  than  satisfactory.1 

This  statement  contains  its  own  refutation.  If  the 
immigrants  "usually  are  practically  sure  of  a  job  almost  as 
soon  as  they  arrive,"  then  there  is  no  occasion  for  them 
1  'to  be  eager  to  secure  work  at  almost  any  wage,  etc." 
Since  "in  the  large  majority  of  cases"  the  immigrants  come 
in  response  to  "a  personal  letter  from  friends  or  members 
of  their  own  families  already  in  the  United  States,"  it  is 
erroneous  to  say  that  they  are  "not  in  touch  with  the 
American  workingman, "  unless  the  term  "American" 
be  used  in  the  narrow  sense  of  native  American.  But  the 
immigrant  loses  nothing  in  a  pecuniary  way  by  not  being 
in  touch  with  the  native  workman,  since  the  latter  usually 
works  at  a  skilled  trade,  whereas  the  former  in  most  cases 
seeks  employment  as  a  common  laborer.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  all  establishments  employing  immigrant  labor  the 
new  applicant,  as  a  rule,  finds  some  one  through  whom  he 
makes  his  contract  in  his  native  language.  It  has  been 
shown  in  the  discussion  of  the  standard  of  living  that  the 
new  immigrant  has  obligations  which  do  not  permit  him 
"to  work  at  any  wage  above  that  affording  a  mere  subsist- 
ence." As  for  affiliation  with  trade  unions,  it  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  they  comprise  only  a  small  minority  of 
all  wage-earners,  native  as  well  as  foreign-born,  and  are 
mostly  confined  to  skilled  trades,  whereas  most  of  the 
immigrants  are  unskilled.  Lastly,  it  is  recognized  by 
the  Immigration  Commission  that  "it  is  inaccurate  to 
speak  of  the  immigrant  population  as  being  only  tempor- 
ary in  this  country":  most  of  the  recent  immigrants  come 
to  stay.2  IS 

The  object  for  which  the  Immigration  Commission  was 
created  was  to  supply  statistical  facts  which  should  take 

1  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  tit.,  pp.  18-19. 

a  See  sw/>ra,  p.  74. — Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  8, 
P-  657- 


288  Immigration  and  Labor 

the  place  of  speculation.  After  a  study  of  the  racial 
composition  of  the  operating  forces  in  the  principal  indus- 
tries, based  upon  information  received  for  more  than  half 
a  million  wage-earners  in  mines  and  manufactures,  the 
Commission  discovered  no  evidence  "that  it  was  usual  for 
employers  to  engage  recent  immigrants  at  wages  actually 
lower  than  those  prevailing  at  the  time  of  their  employment 
in  the  industry  where  they  were  employed."1 

One  of  the  most  striking  facts  indicated  by  a  comparison  of  the 
earnings  of  the  races  in  the  different  industries  [say  Professors  Jenks 
and  Lauck]  is  that  earning  ability  is  more  the  outcome  of  industrial 
opportunity  or  conditions  of  employment  than  of  racial  efficiency  and 
progress.  This  fact  becomes  evident  when  the  average  weekly  earnings 
of  the  members  of  a  race,  or  several  races,  in  the  cotton  or  woolen  and 
worsted  goods  industry,  are  considered  in  connection  with  the  earnings 
of  the  same  race  or  races  in  other  industries.  The  Lithuanians,  for 
example,  earn  an  average  of  $12.24  weekly  in  the  manufacture  of 
agricultural  implements  and  vehicles,  $11.60  in  clothing,  $13.60  in 
copper  mining  and  smelting,  $9.87  in  furniture,  $12.89  m  iron  and  steel, 
$11.98  in  iron-ore  mining,  $9.50  in  leather,  $12.85  m  oil  refining,  $10.87 
in  shoes,  $10.67  'm  sugar  refining,  but  only  $7.86  in  cotton  and  $7.97  in 
woolen  and  worsted  manufacturing.  The  same  condition  of  affairs 
is  shown  by  other  races  in  different  industries. a 

That  the  economists  who  directed  the  investigations  of 
the  Immigration  Commission  regard  it  as  a  "striking" 
fact  that  earning  ability  is  the  outcome  of  economic  con- 
ditions rather  than  of  racial  characteristics,  indicates  that 
they  expected  to  find  the  opposite,  viz.,  that  earning  ability 
was  determined  by  racial  factors..  Yet,  notwithstanding 
the  "evident  fact"  brought  to  light  by  the  investigations  of 
the  Commission,  that  individuals  of  the  same  race,  with 
presumably  the  same  "racial  standards,"  are  paid  varying 
rates  of  wages  in  different  industries,  the  Commission  per- 
sists in  the  view  that  the  rate  of  wages  is  determined  by  the 
standard  of  living  of  the  wage-earners.  The  statistics  of 
the  Commission  show  that  the  earnings  of  the  immigrants 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  pp.  494,  541. 
3  Jenks  and  Lauck,  he.  cit.,  pp.  145-146. 


Effect  of  Immigration  on  Wages      289 

increase  with  the  length  of  residence  in  the  United  States; 
there  is  a  ready  explanation  that  "the  immigrants  of  long 
residence  have  acquired  a  higher  standard  of  living  and, 
consequently,  demand  a  higher  wage."1  It  would  seem 
as  though  wages  were  regulated  in  accordance  with  the 
communistic  ideal,  "to  everybody  according  to  his  wants." 
The  question  arises,  however,  why  should  the  employer 
grant  the  demand  of  the  immigrant  of  long  residence  for  a 
higher  wage  when  there  is  said  to  be  an  "oversupply"  of 
recent  immigrants  willing  to  accept  "almost  any  wage 
above  that  affording  a  mere  subsistence"?  The  statistics 
of  the  Commission  give  no  answer  to  this  question,  because 
the  basis  of  its  classification  is  race,  not  character  of  employ- 
ment, each  race  being  treated  as  a  homogeneous  unit.  The 
real  explanation  of  the  variation  in  wages  among  individuals 
of  the  same  race  is  that  the  immigrant  of  long  residence 
has  advanced  on  the  scale  of  occupations  and  is  paid  a 
higher  wage  for  a  higher  grade  of  labor.  Since  he  receives 
a  higher  wage,  he  has  "consequently"  acquired  a  higher 
standard  of  living. 

The  primary  cause  which  has  determined  the  movement 
of  wages  in  the  United  States  during  the  past  thirty  years 
has  been  the  introduction  of  labor-saving  machinery.  The 
effect  of  the  substitution  of  mechanical  devices  for  human 
skill  is  the  displacement  of  the  skilled  mechanic  by  the 
unskilled  laborer.  This  tendency  has  been  counteracted 
in  the  United  States  by  the  expansion  of  industry :  while  the 
ratio  of  skilled  mechanics  to  the  total  operating  force  was 
decreasing,  the  increasing  scale  of  operations  prevented 
an  actual  reduction  in  numbers.  The  growing  demand  for 
unskilled  labor  was  supplied  by  immigration.2  Of  course, 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  2,  p.  370. 

9  Prof.  Commons,  in  the  Reports  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv., 
p.  305,  says:  "In  manufactures,  mining,  and  transportation  there 
has  been  a  rapid  advance  in  machinery  and  a  better  organization 
and  division  of  labor,  whereby  the  resources  of  the  country  are 
made  more  productive.  This  advance  in  machinery  and  division  of 
labor  often  appears  in  itself  to  be  a  means  of  displacing  labor  and  so  of 


290  Immigration  and  Labor 

this  readjustment  did  not  proceed  without  friction.  While, 
in  the  long  run,  there  may  have  been  no  displacement  of 
skilled  mechanics  by  unskilled  laborers  in  the  industrial 
field  as  a  whole,  at  certain  times  and  places  individual  skilled 
mechanics  were  doubtless  dispensed  with  and  had  to  seek 
new  employment.  As  the  unskilled  laborers  who  replaced 
them  were  naturally  engaged  at  lower  wages,  and  as  most 
of  them  were  immigrants,  the  change  reflected  itself  in  the 
minds  of  the  displaced  American  mechanics  as  substitution 
of  cheap  immigrant  labor  for  highly  paid  American  labor. 
The  English,  Scotch,  Welsh,  and  Irish  miners,  e.  g.t  for 
some  time  successfully  resisted  the  introduction  of  machin- 
ery. Their  resistance  was  overcome  by  the  employment  of 
Slavs  and  Italians. «  The  impression  was  thus  created  that 
the  introduction  of  machinery  was  the  effect  of  Slav  and 
Italian  immigration.  According  to  Professors  Jenks  and 
Lauck,  "the  lack  of  skill  and  industrial  training  of  the 
recent  immigrants  in  the  United  States  has  stimulated  the 
invention  of  mechanical  methods  and  processes  which 
might  be  conducted  by  unskilled  industrial  workers  as  a 
substitute  for  the  skilled  operatives  formerly  required."2 
This  idea  had  been  anticipated  by  Mr.  Leiserson,  who 
expressed  the  belief  that  one  of  the  effects  "of  the  influx  of 
Slavs  is  that  lack  of  intelligence  makes  improved  machinery 
and  a  perfected  organization  of  the  mining  processes  abso- 
lutely essential.  There  is  a  direct  connection*  between 
the  increasing  number  of  unintelligent  mining  laborers  and 
the  use  of  mining  machinery  during  the  last  ten  or  fifteen 
years."  The  author  is  ready  to  accept  at  face  value  the 
contention  of  the  coal  operators  "that  the  scarcity  of 
intelligent  labor  compelled  them  to  adopt  machinery 
wherever  possible. ' ' 3  Presumably,  but  for  the  immigration 

depressing  wages,  and  such  would  be  the  case  if  industry  as  a  whole  were 
not  continually  expanding. " 

1  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  pp.  xxiii.,  xxxiv. 

2  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  186-187. 

» William  M.  Leiserson:  "Labor  Conditions  in  the  Mines  of  the  Pitts- 


Effect  of  Immigration  on  Wages      291 

of  the  "unintelligent"  Slavs,  American  industry  might 
have  gone  on  forever  without  improved  machinery,  and  in- 
stead of  perfecting  the  organization  of  the  mining  processes 
the  mine  operators  would  have  encouraged  the  "arts  and 
crafts"  movement  in  bituminous  coal  mining. 

This  theory  ignores  the  elementary  proposition  of  po- 
litical economy,  that  the  main  object  of  labor-saving 
machinery  is  to  dispense  precisely  with  "intelligent,"  i.  e., 
high-priced  labor,  and  that,  on  the  contrary,  an  abundant 
supply  of  cheap  labor  would  retard  the  introduction  of 
improved  machinery.1 

The  conditions  in  the  coal  mines  of  West  Virginia  may 
serve  as  an  example:  "The  low  level  of  wages  in 
West  Virginia  may  be  inferred  from  the  low  rate  of  intro- 
duction of  machinery , ' '  says  Prof.  John  R .  Commons .  This 
fact,  according  to  him,  is  of  special  significance  because 

burgh  District."  Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social 
Science,  March,  1909,  pp.  318-319. 

1 "  If  labor  is  cheap  .  .  .  somewhat  more  labor  will  be  employed  and 
somewhat  less  machinery  installed.  ...  If  wages  are  high  .  .  .  more 
machinery  will  be  introduced  and  somewhat  less  labor  employed." 
C.  J.  Bullock,  Assistant  Professor  of  Political  Economy  in  Harvard 
University,  The  Elements  of  Economics,  pp. 79-80. — "Higher  wages 
for  labor  will  induce  entrepreneurs  to  economize  in  the  use  of 
labor.  .  .  .  In  the  printing  industry,  for  example,  a  rise  in  wages  would 
make  it  profitable  for  employing  printers  to  use  more  labor-saving 
machinery."  Outlines  of  Economics,  by  Richard  T.  Ely,  Professor  of 
Political  Economy  in  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  revised  and  enlarged 
by  the  author  and  Thomas  S.  Adams;  MaxO.  Lorenz,  Ph.D.,  Assistant 
Professor  of  Political  Science  in  the  University  of  Wisconsin;  Allyn  A. 
Young,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Economics  in  Leland  Stanford  Junior 
University  (New  York,  1909),  p.  369. — "Every  rise  of  wages  will 
have  a  tendency  to  determine  the  saved  capital  in  a  greater  proportion 
than  before  to  the  employment  of  machinery.  Machinery  and  labor 
are  in  constant  competition,  and  the  former  can  frequently  not  be 
employed  until  kbor  rises."  David  Ricardo:  Principles  of  Political 
Economy  and  Taxation  (London,  1891),  p.  386. — "Where  abundance  of 
cheap  labor  .  .  .  can  be  obtained,  .  .  .  the  development  of  machinery 
has  been  generally  slower. "  John  A.  Hobson:  The  Evolution  of  Modern 
Capitalism,  p.  69;  also  p.  81.  Cf.  also  Karl  Marx:  Capital,  Book  I., 
Chapter  XV:  Machinery  and  Modern  Industry,  Sec.  2. 


292  Immigration  and  Labor 

''the  miners  of  West  Virginia  are  mainly  native  Americans, 
who  have  only  recently  turned  from  home  industry  to 
mining."1 

It  is  patent  that  the  movement  of  labor  from  agriculture 
to  mining  and  manufactures  would,  even  in  the  absence  of 
all  immigration,  have  overcome  the  resistance  of  the 
English-speaking  miners  to  the  introduction  of  machinery. 
The  number  of  mines  is  not  fixed.  New  mines  are  con- 
tinually being  opened.  The  operator  of  a  new  machine- 
equipped  mine  need  not  face  the  resistance  of  old  pick- 
miners;  he  can  engage  an  entirely  new  force  of  operatives, 
free  from  any  traditions.  His  competition  will  ultimately 
force  the  owners  of  old  mines  to  introduce  machinery  or 
go  out  of  business.  The  resistance  of  English-speaking 
miners  might  have  some  time  been  strong  enough  to  prevent 
the  introduction  of  machinery,  but  at  no  time  could  it 
have  forced  a  mine  operator  to  run  his  mine  at  a  loss.  The 
shutting  down  of  the  unprofitable  mines  would  have  put 
an  end  to  the  resistance  of  the  pick-miners.  Absence  of 
immigration  might  have  retarded  the  growth  of  American 
industry,  but  it  could  not  have  checked  the  introduction  of 
machinery. 

Machinery  has  so  radically  changed  the  technique  of  all 
industries  that  a  comparison  between  past  and  present 
wages  is  beset  with  extreme  difficulties.  Many  old  occu- 
pations are  gone,  and  even  though  the  name  may  have 
remained  the  same,  the  substance  has  changed:  a  steel- 
worker  to-day  is  not  the  same  as  a  steel- worker  thirty  years 
ago.2  A  comparison  of  average  wages  or  earnings  for  two 
different  periods  may  therefore  be  quite  misleading.  It  is 
possible  for  the  average  to  show  a  decrease,  though  in 
reality  the  wages  may  have  increased.  This  will  be  clear 
from  the  following  example  in  which  all  figures  are  purely 

1  Reports  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  410. 

•For  a  discussion  of  this  subject  see  R.  Mayo-Smith:  Statistics  and 
Economics,  pp.  91-102.  (Publications  of  the  American  Economic  As- 
sociation, vol.  iii.,  Nos.  4,  5.) 


Effect  of  Immigration  on  Wages      293 

arbitrary.  Suppose,  the  working  force  of  a  mill  in  1882 
consisted  of  1000  men,  of  whom  750  were  skilled  mechanics 
whose  wages  averaged  $3.50  a  day,  and  250  were  unskilled 
laborers  hired  at  $1.25  a  day.  The  average  wage  for  all 
mill  workers  was,  accordingly,  $3.00  per  day.  Suppose, 
further,  that  in  the  thirty  years  that  have  elapsed  since, 
the  business  of  the  mill  has  grown  and  two  new  departments 
have  been  added,  with  1000  men  in  each.  But  owing  to  the 
installation  of  new  machinery  the  same  750  skilled  me- 
chanics have  been  distributed  over  the  three  plants,  and  the 
additional  force  of  2000  men  consists  solely  of  unskilled  labor- 
ers. Suppose,  the  wages  of  the  skilled  mechanics  have  been 
raised  from  $3.50  to  an  average  of  $5.00  per  day,  and  the 
wages  of  unskilled  laborers  from  $1.25  to  an  average  of 
$2.00  per  day.  The  average  for  the  three  plants,  however, 
would  be  $2.75  per  day,  i.  e.,  twenty-five  cents  less  than 
thirty  years  ago,  notwithstanding  the  substantial  gain  in 
the  wages  of  all  employees.  The  same  defect  is  inherent 
in  the  latest  refinements  of  the  average,  the  "median," 
the  "quartile,"  the  "decile,"  etc. 

Moreover,  our  wage  statistics  present  a  huge  mass  of 
fragmentary  and  heterogeneous  data,  which  in  their  present 
undigested  form  "are  well-nigh  inaccessible."1  The  use 

1  Hearing :  Wages  in  the  United  States,  p.  7.  The  defects  of  our 
wage  statistics  are  well  stated  by  Professor  Nearing  in  the  following 
paragraphs: 

"At  every  turn  the  need  arose  for  an  accurate,  concise  statement  of 
the  wages  being  paid  in  the  various  parts  of  the  United  States,  yet  to 
date  no  study  has  been  made  which  supplies  the  need.  Ryan's  Esti- 
mate is  old,  and  at  best  incomplete;  Mrs.  Moore's  statement,  like  the 
statement  in  the  1903  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  is  of 
standards  of  living  primarily,  and  only  incidentally  of  wages.  In 
neither  case  is  the  ground  covered  sufficiently  to  warrant  valuable  wage 
deductions.  The  Wage  Study  accompanying  the  Census  of  1900  is  old, 
and  rather  inadequate,  as  the  compilers  themselves  point  out.  .  .  . 
The  available  data  on  the  subject  of  wages  exist  chiefly  in  the  reports  of 
State  bureaus  of  labor,  and  are  unfortunately  of  such  a  nature  as  to 
render  comparison  with  data  of  a  decade  since  (in  the  few  cases  where 
such  data  exist)  most  unsatisfactory.  .  .  .  New  York  wage  statistics 


294  Immigration  and  Labor 

of  wage  statistics,  such  as  they  are,  for  an  analysis  of  the 
effects  of  immigration  on  wages  is  restricted  by  lack  of 
comparable  statistics  of  occupations  by  nativity.1 

On  the  other  hand,  a  rise  or  a  fall  in  money  wages  is  no 
indication  of  an  increase  or  decrease  of  the  resources  of  the 
wage-earners,  unless  coupled  with  comparative  statistics 
of  the  cost  of  living.  The  various  index  numbers  of  prices^ 
however,  admit  of  a  wide  margin  of  error.  An  illustration 
is  furnished  by  the  curve  plotted  by  Mr.  Streightoff  from 
the  figures  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor  on  "real 
wages."2  It  appears  that  during  the  period  from  1890  to 
1907,  the  purchasing  power  of  full-time  weekly  wages  was 
at  its  maximum  in  1896,  when,  according  to  the  statistics 
of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau,  the  ratio  of  unemployment 
was  as  high  as  during  the  crisis  year  I9o8;3  the  country  had 

relate  to  members  of  labor  unions  only;  the  average  wage  statistics  of 
Pennsylvania  are  incomplete — even  those  cited  are  wretchedly  compiled 
and  presented;  Illinois  has  published  no  recent  statement  of  wages 
except  in  department  stores;  Missouri,  Michigan,  and  Indiana  publish 
little  or  no  wage  data.  The  statistics  for  Ohio  are  excellent,  but  very 
diffuse  and  unconcentrated.  .  .  .  Therefore,  of  the  ten  leading  indus- 
trial States,  three  present  worthy  wage  data;  the  statistics  of  two  are 
far  from  satisfactory;  while  five  of  the  ten  States  furnish  no  current  wage 
material  of  value  to  this  study.  Deplorable  as  is  the  lack  of  statistics 
in  these  great  industrial  States,  the  conditions  in  the  country  at  large 
are  infinitely  worse.  Of  the  forty-seven  States  of  the  Union,  not  more 
than  five  publish  up-to-date  wage  statistics.  Of  the  remaining  States, 
a  score  publish  statistics  of  average  wages  only,  which,  in  some  cases,  are 
so  unrepresentative  as  to  be  valueless. ' '  (Pp.  9-15.) 

"The  last  Bulletin  of  the  Federal  Bureau  of  Labor  relating  to  wages 
was  published  in  1908.  .  .  .  The  material  as  a  whole  permits  of 
practically  no  deduction,  save  that  wages  are  considerably  higher  in  the 
West  than  in  any  other  section  of  the  country,  and  that  the  wages  in 
some  trades  are  very  much  higher  than  in  others."  (Pp.  138-139.) 

*  For  example,  though  the  average  wages  of  coal  miners  can  be  com- 
puted from  census  statistics  for  every  State,  it  is  impossible  to  ascertain 
for  many  States  the  percentage  of  Slavs  among  coal  miners,  because 
coal  miners  are  combined  in  census  statistics  with  metalliferous  miners 
and  quarrymen. 

2  Streightoff,  loc.  cit.,  Chart  XI. 

» See  Ch.  VI.,  Table  23  and  Diagram  IX. 


Effect  of  Immigration  on  Wages      295 

not  recovered  from  the  effects  of  the  crisis  of  1893-1894,  and 
the  industrial  situation  was  again  disturbed  by  the  uncer- 
tainty of  a  Presidential  campaign  fought  on  one  of  the  most 
vital  economic  issues,  the  money  question.  No  trust  can 
be  placed  in  statistics  which  lead  to  conclusions  so  glaringly 
at  variance  with  facts  still  fresh  in  people's  memory. 

Overlooking,  however,  the  inadequacy  of  our  wage 
statistics,  let  us  examine  the  material,  such  as  it  is,  bearing 
upon  the  relation  between  immigration  and  wages. 

We  have  seen  that  in  the  40*3  the  wages  of  Irish  street 
laborers  in  Brooklyn  were  insufficient  to  provide  for  rent, 
and  they  were  compelled  to  live  in  shanties. «  Bad  as  the 
housing  accommodations  of  the  Italian  street  laborers  may 
be  to-day,  they  nevertheless  earn  enough  to  pay  rent,  which 
is  indisputable  proof  of  an  increase  in  "real  wages." 

A  generation  later,  a  statistical  inquiry  into  the  earnings 
of  75,000  wage-earners  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts  led 
the  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  to  the  conclusion  that  "the 
average  earnings  of  a  majority  of  the  skilled  laborers  in  this 
State  do  not  reach  the  average  cost  of  the  necessities  of 
life, "  with  the  result  that  "the  children  of  the  poor  are  taken 
away  early  from  school,  and  brought  into  the  labor  market ; 
the  son  to  the  factory,  store,  or  shop,  and  the  daughter  to 
the  life  and  wages  of  a  factory  or  cash  girl,  or  of  a  serving 
woman. ' ' a  Evidently  the  skilled  mechanics  forty  years  ago 
did  not  fare  better  than  the  wage-earners  of  our  own  day. 

In  the  same  report  there  is  a  comparison  of  earnings  and 
expenses  in  Massachusetts  for  1800, 1830,  and  1860.  It  is 
estimated  that  in  1800  the  master  mason  alone  of  all  crafts- 
men earned  more  than  his  expenses,  whereas  master  carpen- 
ters and  master  painters  could  not  pay  their  expenses; 
journeymen  carpenters,  masons,  and  painters  were  in  the 
same  category.  In  1 830  a  journeyman  mason  earned  barely 

1  New  York  Weekly  Tribune,  May  2,  1846.  Quoted  in  Documentary 
History  of  American  Industrial  Society,  vol.  viii.,  pp.  225-226. 

a  Third  Annual  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Statistics  of 
Labor  (1871-1872),  pp.  531-532- 


296  Immigration  and  Labor 

enough  to  support  a  family  of  four,  but  the  earnings  of  a 
journeyman  carpenter  were  still  insufficient  to  provide  for  a 
family  of  the  same  size.  The  wages  of  a  laborer  were  esti- 
mated at  $226  a  year,  which  was  equivalent  to  a  little  over 
one  half  of  the  estimated  expenses  of  an  average  family  of 
four  persons.  In  1860  neither  a  master  carpenter,  nor  a 
master  painter  earned  enough  to  support  a  family;  no 
journeyman  in  the  building  trades  was  able  to  support  a 
family  solely  on  his  own  earnings.  The  earnings  of  a  common 
laborer  remained,  as  thirty  years  before,  at  a  little  over  one 
half  of  the  estimated  cost  of  supporting  a  family.1 

The  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  New  Jersey  in  its  early  days 
published  a  number  of  workmen's  budgets.  A  compilation  of 
the  data  for  1885  will  be  found  in  the  Appendix,  Tables  XIX. 
and  XX.  The  workmen  were  either  native,  or  immigrants 
from  Northern  and  Western  Europe.  Immigration  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  was  still  too  insignificant  to 
affect  the  labor  situation.  It  appears  that  of  all  wage-earn- 
ers in  specified  occupations  only  glass-workers  and  black- 
smiths earned  enough  to  support  on  their  wages  an  average 
family  of  about  five  persons.  Other  skilled  mechanics,  such  as 
machinists  and  carpenters,  needed  the  assistance  of  mem- 
bers of  their  households  to  support  a  family  of  the  same 
size,  while  workers  in  textile  mills  could  not  meet  expenses 
even  with  the  assistance  of  members  of  their  families. 
Among  unskilled  laborers  there  were  some  whose  earnings 
were  sufficient  to  support  their  families,  but  their  expenses 
averaged  only  $i  a  day.  Those  families  whose  expenses 
averaged  about  $1.50  a  day  or  more  were  barely  able  to 
keep  above  water  with  the  aid  of  the  children's  earnings. 
None  of  the  Irish  laborers  could  make  both  ends  meet, 
although  their  expenses  were  somewhat  below  those  of  the 
other  English-speaking  laborers. 

There  are  similar  budget  data  in  the  report  of  the  Ohio 
Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  for  1885.  In  a  few  trades,  the 

1  Third  Annual  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Statistics  of 
Labor,  (1871-1872),  pp.  514-517.  See  Appendix,  Table  XVIII. 


Effect  of  Immigration  on  Wages      297 

average  earnings  were  insufficient  to  provide  for  the  support 
of  the  wage-earner  and  his  family.  The  average  deficit  per 
family  for  each  occupation  is  shown  in  Table  87 : 

TABLE  87. 

AVERAGE  ANNUAL  DEFICIT   PER  WORKING  FAMILY  IN  OHIO,   BY    OCCU- 
PATIONS, 1885.* 


Occupation 

Persons  in  family 

Annual  deficit 

Stone-cutters  

5.O 

$     2 

Machinists       

42 

4  5 

_5 

Iron-workers  

•5.7 

66 

Wood  -carvers  

5-6 

lit 

Cigar-makers  

4.8 

114 

Miners  

5-8 

IIQ 

Among  the  skilled  mechanics  the  stone-cutters  and  the 
machinists  were  on  the  border  line  between  surplus  and  de- 
ficit; the  cabinet-makers,  wood-carvers  and  cigar-makers 
depended  upon  outside  sources,  in  addition  to  their  wages ; 
likewise  the  iron-workers  and  the  miners.  The  proportion 
of  immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  in  those 
occupations  five  years  later  varied  in  Ohio  between  2.1  and 
5.3  per  cent. 

One  fact  may  be  taken  as  firmly  established  by  the  pre- 
ceding statistics,  fragmentary  and  insufficient  as  they  are  for 
other  purposes,  viz.,  that  in  the  days  of  "the  old  immi- 
gration*' the  wages  of  unskilled  laborers,  and  even  of  some 
of  the  skilled  mechanics,  did  not  fully  provide  for  the  support 
of  the  wage-earner  and  his  family  in  accordance  with  their 
usual  standards  of  living.  The  shortage  had  to  be  made  up 
by  the  wife  and  children. 

If  the  tendency  of  the  new  immigration  be  to  lower  the 
rate  of  wages  or  to  retard  the  advance  of  wages,  it  should 
be  expected  that  wages  would  be  lower  in  great  cities  where 
the  recent  immigrants  are  concentrated,  than  in  rural  dis- 
tricts where  the  population  is  mostly  of  native  birth.  All 

'  See  Appendix,  Table  XXI.; 


2Q8 


Immigration  and  Labor 


wage  statistics  concur,  however,  in  the  opposite  conclusion. 
Though  the  census  reports  have  since  1900  repeatedly 
warned  against  the  use  of  census  returns  for  the  computation 
of  average  earnings,  yet  the  defects  of  the  census  statistics 
of  wages  do  not  preclude  a  fair  comparison  between  the 
earnings  of  urban  and  rural  factory  operatives.  The 
average  number  of  wage-earners  in  either  case  has  been 
computed  on  a  uniform  basis  of  300  working  days  per  wage- 
earner.  While  individual  returns  may  be  mere  estimates  of 
questionable  accuracy,  yet  these  defects  are  insufficient  to 
obscure  a  pronounced  tendency,  such  as  shown  in  Table  88. 

TABLE  88. 

AVERAGE  EARNINGS  OF  FACTORY  WORKERS,  FOR  A  YEAR  OF  30O  WORKING 

DAYS,  1904.' 


Location 

Men 

Women 

ChUdren 

Urban 
Rural 

$566 
479 

$307 
264 

$186 
158 

An  examination  of  previous  census  reports  on  manufac- 
tures as  far  back  as  1870  proves  that  since  the  United  States 
has  become  a  manufacturing  country  average  earnings  per 
worker  have  been  higher  in  the  cities  than  in  the  country.2 
The  effect  of  this  difference  is  "that  the  country  competi- 
tion of  native  Americans  where  the  cost  of  living  is  low  often 
acts  as  a  depressing  effect  on  wages  in  the  same  occupation 
in  cities. ' ' 3  Prof.  Commons  gives  the  following  explanation 

1  Computed  from  the  Report  of  the  Census  of  Manufactures,  1905, 
Part  I.,  United  States  by  Industries,  Table  I.,  p.  xxxv. 

2  See  XII.  Census  Reports.     Manufactures,  Part  I.,  pp.  ccxx.,  ccxxi., 
Tables  IV.-VI. ;  p.  cclix.,  Tables  XXVII.  and  XXVIII.    This  difference 
might  be  accounted  for  in  part  by  the  employment  of  relatively  greater 
numbers  of  women  and  children  in  smaller  cities  and  rural  settlements. 
The  effect  upon  the  wage  situation,  however,  is  the  same,  whether  the 
better  paid  workman  of  the  city  is  underbid  by  a  man,  woman,  or  child 
employed  in  a  country  town. 

3  Reports  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  xxiv. 


Effect  of  Immigration  on  Wages      299 

of  "the  pressure  to  reduce  wages"  which  "proceeds  from 
the  cheaper  labor  of  country  districts  employed  in  the  same 
line  of  production'*: 

Wages  are  necessarily  higher  in  cities  than  in  the  country  for  the 
corresponding  standard  of  living.  In  the  city  there  are  such  additional 
demands  as  car  fare,  the  food  costs  more  and  must  be  paid  for  in  cash, 
because  the  laborer  does  not  have  his  patch  of  ground  from  which,  by 
the  help  of  wife  and  children  and  by  his  own  extra  work  mornings  and 
evenings  and  idle  days,  he  can  secure  a  large  share  of  his  necessary  food 
supplies.1 

In  other  words,  the  American  wage-earner  in  a  country 
district  gives  more  of  his  time  to  making  a  living  than  the 
city  worker. 

The  same  difference  exists  within  the  same  trades  between 
the  large  cities  and  the  smaller  cities.  The  Industrial 
Commission,  in  its  volume  on  immigration,  quotes  the 
following  from  the  reports  of  the  New  York  Bureau  of 
Labor: 

Wages  at  the  present  time  (in  1898)  are  good  throughout  the  large 
cities,  where  it  must  be  barne  in  mind  the  men  employed  in  the  building 
trades  have  themselves  ueen  immigrants.  In  the  smaller  cities,  where 
the  wages  are  much  less  than  in  the  larger  cities,  it  is  the  older  American 
labor  which  controls  the  field. 3 

Another  way  to  trace  the  connection,  if  any,  between 
immigration  and  wages,  is  to  compare  the  average  earnings 
by  States  with  reference  to  the  percentage  of  foreign-born ; 
if  immigration  tends  to  depress  wages,  this  tendency  will 
manifest  itself  in  lower  average  earnings  for  States  with  a 
large  immigrant  population,  and  vice  versa.  No  such  tend- 
ency is  disclosed  by  wage  statistics.  In  Tables  89  and  90 
the  average  earnings  of  male  and  female  wage- workers  above 
the  age  of  sixteen  in  the  principal  manufacturing  States  are 
collated  with  the  percentages  of  all  foreign-born  and  of 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  of  the  same  sex  engaged 
in  manufactures  and  mechanical  pursuits.  Southern  States 

1  Reports  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  316. 
*  Ibid .,  p.  426. 


300 


Immigration  and  Labor 


where  the  negroes  constitute  more  than  10  per  cent  of  all 
persons  of  both  sexes  engaged  in  manufactures  have  been 
excluded  from  this  table,  in  order  to  eliminate  the  influence 
of  negro  competition  upon  the  average  earnings. x 

TABLE  89. 

AVERAGE  ANNUAL   EARNINGS    OF  MALE  EMPLOYEES  IN    MANUFACTURES, 
COLLATED  WITH  THE  PERCENTAGES  OF  FOREIGN-BORN,  IN 
THE  PRINCIPAL  STATES,  IQOO. 


Average  annual 

Per  cent  of  all  ma 

and  mechar 

les  in  manufactures 
deal  pursuits 

State 

earnings 

Foreign-born 

Southern  and 
Eastern  Europeans 

Colorado      

$  630 

38   "i 

IO  O 

California  

589 

-14.4. 

4   5 

Washington 

578 

•14.    Q 

3-1 

New  York  

558 

44  O 

•o 

TC    4. 

New  Mexico  

»«1 

27  O 

6  8 

Connecticut  

S^O 

•f  'j? 

41.6 

8  6 

Illinois 

C-IQ 

4.4.  7 

8   7 

Massachusetts  .    . 

527 

**•  / 

xfiA-i 

4   8 

New  Jersey  

CIQ 

Hi 

94. 

Oregon  

5l8 

28.8 

2    I 

Pennsylvania 

KH 

•i-i   2 

T-5     4. 

Nebraska.    . 

cio 

•*O  7 

30 

Kansas  

4QC 

IO  1 

30 

Rhode  Island  

4.8  5 

47.  0 

5.1 

Delaware 

4.71 

17  7 

4      A 

Texas  

AAX 

*/  •  / 

18  Q 

2   2 

No  definite  relation  between  wages  and  immigration  can 
be  deduced  from  the  preceding  tables.  States  with  widely 
differing  percentages  of  foreign-born  male  operatives  have 
the  same  average  earnings,  e.  g.,  Illinois,  Connecticut,  and 
New  Mexico,  while  States  with  the  same  percentages  of 
foreign-born  male  wage-earners  widely  differ  with  respect 
to  rates  of  wages,  e.  g. ,  Colorado  and  New  Jersey.  Higher 

*XII.  Census.  Manufactures,  Part  I.,  p.  cxv.,  Table  XXXIX.; 
Population,  Part  I.,  pp.  cii.-civ.,  Table  XLVL;  p.  cvi.,  Table  XLVIII., 
also  p.  cxiv.,  Table  LIIL 


Effect  of  Immigration  on  Wages      301 

percentages  of  foreign-born  go  together  with  higher  average 
earnings,  e.  #.,  Rhode  Island  has  more  than  twice  as  many 
foreign-born  in  proportion  as  Texas,  and  the  rate  of  wages 
in  Rhode  Island  is  higher  than  in  Texas.  And,  on  the  con- 


TABLE  90. 

AVERAGE  ANNUAL  EARNINGS  OF  FEMALE  EMPLOYEES  IN  MANUFACTURES, 
COLLATED   WITH  THE  PERCENTAGES   OF  FOREIGN-BORN,   IN 
THE  PRINCIPAL   STATES,    IQOO. 


State 

Average  annual 
earnings 

Percentage  of   all  foreign-born 
females  in   manufactures  and 
mechanical  pursuits 

Colorado  .         

$  W 

Id  O 

Massachusetts      .... 

-IIQ 

do  6 

Washington  

o'-y 
Il6 

10  o 

Rhode  Island  .  .  

1O4 

•IQ    C 

C  onn  ect  ic  u  t 

•102 

27   O 

New  York 

o^-* 
208 

2Q  6 

Illinois       .           ... 

288 

26    I 

California  

27Q 

17   O 

New  Jersey  

'9 

276 

25    1 

Pennsylvania  

262 

11   O 

Nebraska  

258 

15.8 

New  Mexico  . 

2^5 

30 

Texas     

251 

IO  d 

Oregon  

24.Q 

12.1 

215 

6.6 

Delaware  

211 

6.7 

trary,  lower  percentages  of  foreign-born  go  together  with 
higher  average  wages,  e.  g.t  Kansas  and  Rhode  Island. 
Neither  does  immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe  appear  to  affect  the  average  earnings.  New  York 
with  the  highest  percentage  of  immigrants  from  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europe  has  a  higher  average  than  Oregon 
with  the  lowest  percentage  of  immigrants  from  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europe.  The  average  earnings  of  women 
likewise  bear  no  definite  relation  to  the  per  cent  of  foreign- 
born  breadwinners.  In  Massachusetts,  which  has  the 
maximum  per  cent  (40.6)  of  foreign-born  breadwinners  in 


302  Immigration  and  Labor 

manufacturing  and  mechanical  pursuits,  the  average  earn- 
ings are  $319,  whereas  in  New  Mexico,  which  has  the  mini- 
mum per  cent  of  foreign-born  breadwinners  (3.9),  the 
average  earnings  are  $255.  The  lowest  average  earnings, 
$211  annually,  are  found  in  Delaware,  with  6.7  per  cent  of 
foreign-born  women  employed  in  manufactures,  while  in 
Massachusetts,  with  six  times  as  many  foreign-born,  the 
average  annual  earnings  were  52  per  cent  above  the  Dela- 
ware average.  The  preponderance  of  evidence,  to  use  a 
legal  term,  supports  the  conclusion  that,  as  a  rule,  the 
annual  earnings  are  higher  in  States  with  a  higher  percentage 
of  foreign-born  factory  workers.  But  making  allowance 
for  the  few  exceptions  to  this  rule,  the  least  that  can  be 
said  is  that  there  is  no  proof  of  a  tendency  of  immigration, 
old  or  new,  to  depress  the  rate  of  wages. 

The  preceding  conclusions  based  upon  an  examination  of 
census  statistics  of  average  earnings  are  corroborated  by  the 
results  of  Prof.  Nearing's  study  of  wage  statistics  published 
by  State  labor  bureaus.  He  finds  "  that  average  wages  are 
rather  constant  for  a  given  industry  from  State  to  State,  and 
from  city  to  city  within  a  State."1  As  the  percentage  of 
immigrants  among  the  wage-earners  employed  in  each  in- 
dustry greatly  varies  from  State  to  State  and  from  city  to 
city,  it  is  evident  that  immigration  does  not  affect  the  rate 
of  wages. 

"The  opportunities  for  the  new  hands  depend  upon  the 
expansion  of  industry  and  the  resources  of  the  country," 
says  Professor  Commons.  ' '  Provided  this  expansion  occurs, 
there  is  no  overcrowding  of  the  labor  market.  The  new 
resources  and  new  investments  demand  new  labor;  and, 
if  the  expansion  is  strong  enough,  the  new  labor  as  well  as 
the  existing  labor  may  secure  advances  in  wages."  * 

It  is  broadly  asserted  by  Professors  Jenks  and  Lauck  that 
the  large  supply  of  Southern  and^  Eastern  European  labor 
"has  seriously  retarded  the  advance  of  wages  in  those  occu- 

1  Nearing,  loc.  ciL,  pp.  145-146. 

a  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  305. 


Effect  of  Immigration  on  Wages      303 

pations  where  such  labor  could  be  used  to  advantage." 
The  case  of  section  hands  on  the  railroads  is  cited  as  a  spe- 
cific example:  their  wages  are  said  to  have  "varied  little 
during  the  last  fifteen  years,  although  the  wages  in  other 
lines  of  industry  have  advanced  materially."1  This  con- 
clusion is  at  variance  with  the  statistics  of  the  Interstate 
Commerce  Commission,  which  furnish  an  accurate  record  of 
the  yearly  fluctuations  of  average  daily  wages  for  the  main 
classes  of  railway  employees.2  In  order  to  bring  out  the 
effect  of  the  supply  of  Southern  and  Eastern  European  labor 
upon  the  wages  of  section  hands  on  the  railways,  the  varia- 
tions in  their  wages  must  be  compared  with  the  variations 
in  the  wages  of  other  railway  employees.  It  should  not 
be  lost  sight  of  that  the  rates  of  wages  are  governed  by  de- 
mand, as  well  as  by  supply,  not  by  supply  alone.  That 
wages  in  other  lines  of  industry  have  advanced  more  rapidly, 
may  have  been  due  to  a  greater  demand  for  labor  in  those 
lines.  It  is  only  when  the  comparison  is  confined  to  railway 
employees  that  the  changes  in  the  rates  of  wages  can  be  ob- 
served under  uniform  conditions.  The  data  for  such  a  com- 
parison are  presented  in  graphic  form  in  Diagram  XVIII. 
Of  the  eight  classes  shown  on  the  diagram  all  but  the  lowest 
two  consist  of  English-speaking  employees,  while  the  two 
lowest  grades  are  filled  very  largely  by  immigrants  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  The  engineers,  conductors, 
and  firemen  have  strong  organizations,  while  the  laborers 
and  trackmen  are  unorganized.  The  raises  secured  by  the 
latter  have  come  solely  through  the  operation  of  the  law  of 
supply  and  demand.  The  wage  curves  for  all  classes  but 
general  office  clerks  show  a  rising  tendency;  the  variations 
from  year  to  year  are  almost  parallel.  The  office  clerks  are 
the  only  class  whose  wages  have  remained  practically  sta- 

1  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  206-207.     In  a  preceding  paragraph 
this  specific  example  is  qualified  by  the  statement  that  "in  certain  cases 
they  [immigrants  hired  for  railroad  section  work]  have  been  paid  even 
more  than  the  laborers  previously  employed,  the  latter  being  insufficient 
in  number  to  meet  the  increasing  demand. "    (p.  206). 

2  Statistical  Abstract  of  the  United  States,  1910,  Table  169,  p.  266. 


Immigration  and  Labor 


tionary;  considering  the  increased  cost  of  living,  their  real 
wages  have  in  fact  declined.  The  clerical  force  is,  with  few 
exceptions,  either  of  native  or  of  Northern  and  Western 
European  birth.  Thus  while  the  wages  of  Southern  and 
Eastern  European  section  hands  have  been  raised  to  meet 

DIAGRAM  XVIII. 


•*4— 


*Z- 


•a 


I    S    I 


TXACfMCM 


<WUCTO*'  mym  ..— 


LA**C*9 


*  I 


»    J  "• 


XVIIL    Average  daily  wages  of  railroad  employees,  1891-1909. 

the  increased  cost  of  living,  the  salary  of  the  American  office 
clerk  has  not  been  advanced. 

The  Immigration  Commission  seeks  to  hold  immigration 
from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  responsible  even  for  the 
low  pay  of  clerical  help: 

"There  is  the  general  feeling  that  in  so  far  as  the  recent 


Effect  of  Immigration  on  Wages       305 

immigrants  are  entering  occupations  in  which  Americans  are 
engaged,  they  are  rendering  those  occupations  undesirable. 
The  American  laborer  does  not  care  in  many  cases  to  work 
with  the  'Hunkie/  and  he  resents  the  latter's  presence  and 
in  many  cases  transfers  his  own  labor  to  an  occupation  such 
as  a  clerkship  at  lower  wages.  "z 

Thus  because  the  American  street  laborer  deems  it 
beneath  his  station  in  life  to  work  side  by  side  with  a 
"Hunkie,"  he  is  said  to  be  willing  to  accept  at  a  sacri- 
fice a  more  respectable  position  at  a  desk  in  a  railway 
or  mining  office.  The  Commission  has  produced  no 
statistics  to  show  the  percentage  of  clerical  employees 
with  a  previous  experience  as  section  hands  and  mine 
laborers.  On  the  other  hand,  preference  for  clerical  work 
among  the  children  of  American  mechanics  antedates 
the  advent  of  the  "Hunkie."  A  discussion  of  the  subject 
is  found  in  a  report  of  the  Illinois  Bureau  of  Labor  as  far 
back  as  1 886.  First  among  the  reasons ' '  why  the  American- 
bred  youth  seek  clerkships"  is  noted  "the  distaste  of  the 
American  youth  for  the  trades.  "3  Obviously,  the  Slav  and 
Italian  laborers  ought  not  to  be  burdened  with  responsi- 
bility for  the  oversupply  of  native  American  labor  in  clerical 
pursuits. 

No  evidence  of  the  alleged  tendency  of  Southern  and 
Eastern  European  labor  to  retard  the  advance  of  wages  can 
be  found  in  the  two  basic  industries  which  are  generally 
regarded  as  representative  of  the  conditions  produced  by 
recent  immigration — the  coal  and  the  iron  and  steel  in- 
dustry. In  the  latter,  the  Immigration  Commission  finds, 
"the  extensive  employment  of  recent  immigrants  has  been 
attended  by  an  increase  in  rates  of  wages  due  to  the  general 
scarcity  of  labor  in  the  face  of  the  remarkable  industrial 
expansion  of  recent  years."3  This  statement  should  be 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  9,  p.  583. 
3  Fourth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor  of  the 
State  of  Illinois,  p.  227. 

*  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  9,  p.  440. 


3o6  Immigration  and  Labor 

supplemented  by  the  fact,  brought  to  light  by  the  Pitts- 
burgh Survey,  that  while  the  wages  of  the  Southern  and 
Eastern  European  laborers  in  the  steel  mills  have  increased, 
the  wages  of  the  semi-skilled  and  skilled  men — mostly 
Americans  or  old  immigrants  of  the  English-speaking  races 
— have  remained  stationary,  which  is  in  effect  equivalent  to 
a  lowering  of  the  standard  of  wages ;  and  the  money  wages  of 
the  labor  aristocracy,  none  of  whom  are  Southern  and  East- 
ern Europeans,  have  been  actually  reduced.1  The  same 
tendency  is  observed  in  the  unionized  coal  mines  of  the 
Pittsburgh  district:  the  wages  of  the  unskilled  men  are 
much  higher  than  those  paid  for  the  same  grade  of  labor  in 
the  steel  mills,  whereas  the  wages  of  the  skilled  men  are  the 
same  in  the  mills  and  mines  for  work  of  the  same  class.  In 
the  coal  mines,  as  in  the  steel  mills,  unskilled  work  is  done 
almost  exclusively  by  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans, 
while  the  skilled  men  are  mostly  of  the  "English-speaking" 
races.3 

To  be  sure,  there  is  a  continuous  readjustment  of  wages 
to  prices.  The  employer  of  labor  seeks  to  recoup  the  ad- 
vance in  wages,  by  advancing  the  price  of  his  product  to  the 
consumer.  When  the  advance  in  the  price  of  manufactured 
products  becomes  general,  the  wage-earner,  as  a  consumer, 
is  forced  in  effect  to  give  up  a  part  or  all  of  his  gain  in  the 
money  rate  of  wages.  The  increased  cost  of  living  then 
stimulates  further  demands  for  advances  in  wages.  Since 
combinations  of  capital  in  all  fields  of  industry  have  reduced 
competition  among  employers  of  labor  to  a  minimum,  the 
wage-earners  have  been  at  a  disadvantage  in  this  con- 
tinuous bargaining.  The  Immigration  Commission  holds 
that  the  bargaining  power  of  labor  has  been  impaired  by 
''the  availability  of  the  large  supply  of  recent  immigrant 
labor,"  which  "has  undoubtedly  had  the  effect  of  prevent- 
ing an  increase  of  wages  to  the  extent  which  would  have 

1  This  subject  is  specially  treated  further,  in  Chapter  XX.,  on  the 
Steel-Workers. 

1  See  Chapter  XXL,  on  the  Coal  Miners. 


Effect  of  Immigration  on  Wages      307 

been  necessary  had  the  expansion  in  the  local  industries  oc- 
curred without  the  availability  of  the  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europeans."1 

Instead  of  conjecturing  what  "would  have  resulted  .  .  . 
from  the  increased  demand  for  labor,"2  under  imaginary 
conditions,  it  is  safer  to  inquire  what  were  the  actual  effects 
of  business  prosperity  on  wages  in  past  American  history 
''without  the  availability  of  the  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europeans."  A  fair  basis  for  comparison  is  offered  by  the 
Civil  War  period.  "With  the  exception  of  the  first  year, 
the  Civil  War  period  was  one  of  prosperity  in  manufactures, 
transportation,  mining,  and  agriculture.  Profits  were  large 
.  .  .  New  woolen  factories  were  opened;  many  were 
operated  day  and  night.  Dividends  of  ten  to  twenty 
per  cent  were  common;  and  larger  returns  were  not  un- 
known."3 On  the  other  hand,  the  cost  of  living  rose 
as  rapidly  as  in  recent  years;  though  the  causes  were 
different,  the  effect  upon  the  wage-earner's  budget  was  the 
same.  The  wage-earners  were  apparently  in  a  favorable 
situation:  "The  war  caused  an  unprecedented  drain  of 
workers  from  the  productive  industries  into  the  army,"4 
whereas  immigration  dropped  during  the  first  two  years. s 
The  effect  of  that  situation  on  wages  is  shown  graphically 
in  Diagram  XIX.,  reproduced  in  part  from  Chart  XII.  of 

1  Reports,  vol.  8,  p.  440.  The  sentence  is  self -contradictory  in  form, 
presuming  to  state  "the  effect"  which  a  hypothetical  condition 
"has  undoubtedly  had",  although,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  combina- 
tion of  causes  which  "would  have"  made  the  effect  "necessary"  never 
occurred.  This  idea  is  not  original  with  the  Immigration  Commis- 
sion. It  is  referred  to  in  the  following  terms  by  Prof.  Commons  in 
his  report  on  immigration:  "It  is  possible,  of  course,  that  the  presence 
of  immigrants  in  large  numbers  may  prevent  wages  from  reaching  as 
high  a  level  in  time  of  prosperity  as  they  otherwise  would  reach,  but 
this  cannot,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  be  demonstrated." — Reports  of  the 
Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  309. 

3  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  pp.  540-541. 

*  Frank  Tracy  Carlton:  The  History  and  Problems  of  Organized 
Labor,  pp.  52-53.  .« Ibid.,  p.  51. 

5  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I ,  pp.  79-80. 


308 


Immigration  and  Labor 


DIAGRAM  XIX. 


To 


60 


1861 


•63 


'64- 


XIX.     Medians  of  relative  cost 

of  living  and  average  of 

biennial  medians  of 

relative  wages, 

1861-1865. 


Prof.  Wesley  C.  Mitchell's 
painstaking  study  of  "Gold, 
Prices,  and  Wages  under  the 
Greenback  Standard."  The 
cost  of  living  rose  more  rap- 
idly than  money  wages.  In 
other  words,  "without  the 
availability  of  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europeans,"  real 
wages  decreased.1 

It  must  be  noted  that  "af- 
ter 1862  labor  agitation  be- 
came considerable.  .  .  .  Until 
near  the  end  of  the  war 
strikes  were  usually  successful ; 
but  they  were  not  sufficiently 
successful  to  cause theincrease 
in  wages  to  keep  pace  with 
rising  prices. " 2  This  compar- 
ison shows  that  the  hypoth- 
esis of  the  Immigration  Com- 
mission concerning  the  extent 
of  the  increase  of  wages 
"which  would  have  been  nec- 
essary had  the  expansion  of 
American  industries  occurred 
without  the  availability  of  the 

1  The  decrease  in  real  wages  dur- 
ing the  period  of  the  Civil  War, 
according  to  the  Aldrich  Report, 
was  as  follows  (Carlton,  loct  cit.,  p. 
55): 

Year  Per  cent 

1861 


1862 

"-    I863 
I864 
1865 
a  Ibid.,  pp.  57-58. 


100 
87 
74 
66 
66 


Effect  of  Immigration  on  Wages  -  309 

Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans,"  does  not  fit  the  facts  of 
American  economic  history. 

The  facts  brought  to  light  by  the  investigations  of  the 
Immigration  Commission  furnish  ground  for  the  assump- 
tion— paradoxical  as  it  may  seem  at  a  superficial  glance — 
that  the  availability  of  the  large  supply  of  recent  immigrant 
labor  has  prevented  a  reduction  of  the  wages  of  the  older 
employees. 

The  prime  force  which  has  made  industrial  expansion  so 
rapid  in  recent  times  has  been  the  general  introduction  of 
labor-saving  machinery.  The  immediate  effect  of  the  intro- 
duction of  every  new  machine  has  been  the  displacement  of 
the  trained  mechanic  by  the  unskilled  laborer.  To  be  sure, 
the  cheapness  of  machine-made  products  stimulates  con- 
sumption of  manufactured  goods  and  creates  an  increased 
demand  for  labor,  which  in  the  long  run  offsets  the  loss  of 
employment  caused  by  the  introduction  of  machinery. 
But  this  is  true  only  on  the  assumption  of  a  considerable 
industrial  expansion.  To  use  bituminous  coal  mining 
as  an  example:  in  the  mines  of  West  Virginia  a  team  of 
two  skilled  pick-miners  can  produce  10  tons  of  coal  a  day; 
but,  where  machine  mining  has  been  introduced,  one  ma- 
chine runner  with  one  helper  and  eight  loaders  can  turn  out 
50  tons  a  day.  *  Accordingly,  if  a  force  of  100  skilled  pick- 
miners  produced  500  tons  of  coal  per  day,  the  same  output 
would  be  produced  with  the  aid  of  machinery  by  a  force  of 
20  skilled  machine  men  and  80  laborers.  It  may  be  assumed 
that  the  requisite  number  of  common  laborers  would  be 
found  in  the  home  market.  In  order  to  provide  skilled  work 
for  the  80  pick-miners  displaced  by  the  machine,  the  daily 
output  of  coal  must  be  increased  to  2500  tons,  which  would 
require  an  additional  supply  of  320  unskilled  laborers. 
Suppose,  through  restriction  of  immigration,  the  additional 
supply  of  unskilled  labor  were  cut  down  one  half.  The  total 
available  supply  of  labor  would  then  consist  of  the  20  pick- 

1  Annual  Report  of  the  Department  of  Mines,  West  Virginia  (1909), 
PP-  xi.,  73,  152.  153- 


310  Immigration  and  Labor 

miners  who  might  find  employment  as  machine  runners  and 
helpers,  the  80  laborers  who  would  displace  an  equal  num- 
ber of  pick-miners,  the  80  pick-miners  displaced  by  the 
machine,  and  an  additional  supply  of  160  unskilled  immi- 
grant laborers,  in  all  340  men.  The  force  of  operatives  could 
then  be  increased  only  to  34  teams,  consisting  of  68  skilled 
miners  and  272  laborers;  there  would  be  only  48  vacancies 
of  a  higher  grade  for  the  80  skilled  miners  displaced  by 
machinery;  and  the  remaining  32  would  have  to  accept 
employment  at  loading  coal— of  course  at  the  usual  wages 
paid  for  common  labor.  The  fact  noted  by  the  Immigration 
Commission,  that  only  "a  small  part "  of  the  old  employees, 
consisting  of  the  inefficient  element,  are  in  competition  with 
the  recent  immigrants,  is  of  course  the  "result  of  the  ex- 
pansion of  the  industry,"  which  has  opened  to  "the  larger 
proportion"  opportunities  for  "advancement  to  the  more 
skilled  and  responsible  positions."1  These  opportunities, 
however,  were  conditional  upon  the  availability  of  a  pro- 
portionate supply  of  immigrant  labor  for  unskilled  and 
subordinate  positions. 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  voL  I,  p.  236. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

HOURS  OF  LABOR 

EVERY  reduction  of  the  hours  of  labor,  even  when  not 
accompanied  by  an  increase  of  the  daily  or  weekly 
wage,  is  equivalent  to  an  increase  of  the  hourly  wage.  More- 
over, a  reduction  in  the  day's  work,  all  other  things  being 
equal,  provides  more  days  of  work  for  every  employee, 
which  brings  a  direct  increase  of  earnings.  The  length  of 
the  working  day  accordingly  offers  a  fair  measure  of  the 
effects  of  immigration  on  labor  conditions.  It  is  not  com- 
plicated by  the  variations  of  the  purchasing  power  of 
money,  nor  is  it  affected  by  the  uncertainties  of  the  index 
numbers.  A  reduction  of  hours  is  an  unerring  arithmetical 
fact.  And,  fortunately,  the  publications  of  the  Federal 
and  State  labor  bureaus  furnish  ample  material  for  a  com- 
parative study  of  the  hours  of  labor  from  the  beginnings  of 
the  factory  system  in  the  United  States. 

There  is  unconscious  humor  in  the  first  report  of  the 
Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  on  early  factory 
conditions: 

The  earliest  operatives  in  our  mills  were  of  the  home  population — an 
active,  intelligent,  industrious,  thrifty,  well-educated,  orderly,  and 
cleanly  body  of  young  men  and  women,  .  .  .  daughters  of  independent 
farmers,  educated  in  our  common  schools,  (for  years  they  supplied  a 
periodical  with  articles  written  wholly  by  themselves,)  who  could  think 
and  act  for  themselves,  who  knew  right  from  wrong,  fair  treatment 
from  oppression,  and  who  would  be  grateful  for  the  one,  and  would 
not  submit  to  the  other.1 

1  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor,  1869-1870, 
pp.  91-92. 

3" 


312  Immigration  and  Labor 

Interpolated  amid  this  eulogy  of  "the  American  element* 
is  the  following  matter-of-fact  statement:  "The  system  ot 
long  hours  was  first  adopted.  .  .  .  The  general  length 
of  time  per  day  was  14  or  15  hours."  Further  on  it  is 
related  that  "the  customary  time"  was  "from  sunrise  to 
sunset,  which,  in  one  half  of  the  year,  would  give  from  six- 
teen to  twelve  hours,  and  in  the  other  half,  from  nine  hours 
to  twelve." 

The  subject  is  treated  more  thoroughly  in  the  recent 
report  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor  on  "Woman 
and  Child  Wage-Earners." 

The  hours  of  labor  in  textile  factories  in  the  early  part  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  were  much  longer  than  within  recent  years.  In 
Massachusetts  in  1825  the  "  time  of  employment "  in  incorporated  manu- 
facturing companies  was  "generally  12  or  13  hours  each  day,  excepting 
the  Sabbath. "  Of  the  places  which  reported  the  number  of  hours  in 
that  year,  at  only  two,  Ludlow  and  Newbury,  were  the  hours  as  low  as 
1 1  a  day.  ...  At  Duxboro  the  hours  were  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  and 
at  Troy  (Fall  River)  and  Wellington  the  employees  worked  "all  day." 
In  1826,  15  or  1 6  hours  constituted  .  .  .  the  working  day  at  Ware, 
Mass.  .  .  . 

By  the  thirties  the  hours  appear  to  have  been,  if  anything,  longer. 
At  Fall  River,  about  1830,  the  hours  were  from  5  a.m.,  or  as  soon  as  light, 
to  7:30  p.  m.,  or  till  dark  in  summer,  with  one  half  hour  for  breakfast 
and  the  same  time  for  dinner  at  noon,  making  a  day  of  13^  hours. 
In  general  the  hours  of  labor  in  textile  factories  in  New  Hampshire, 
Rhode  Island,  and  Massachusetts  in  1832  were  said  to  be  13  a  day.  But 
at  the  Eagle  Mill,  Griswold,  Conn.,  it  was  said  that  15  hours  and  10 
minutes  actual  labor  in  the  mill  were  required. 

At  Paterson,  N.  J.,  in  1835,  the  women  and  children  were  obliged  to  be 
at  work  at  4:30  in  the  morning.  They  were  allowed  half  an  hour  for 
breakfast  and  three-quarters  of  an  hour  for  dinner,  and  then  worked  as 
long  as  they  could  see.  ...  At  Manayunk,  Philadelphia,  in  1833,  the 
hours  of  work  were  said  to  be  13  a  day.  And  a  little  later  the  hours  at 
the  Schuylkill  factory,  Philadelphia,  were  "  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  from 
the  2 1st  of  March  to  the  2Oth  September,  inclusively,  and  from  sunrise 
until  8  o'clock  p.  m.  during  the  remainder  of  the  year. "  One  hour  was 
allowed  for  dinner  and  half  an  hour  for  breakfast  during  the  first-men- 
tioned six  months,  and  one  hour  for  dinner  during  the  other  half  year. 
On  Saturdays  the  mill  was  stopped  "one  hour  before  sunset  for  the  pur- 
pose of  cleaning  the  machinery. " 


Hours  of  Labor 


Overtime,  too,  was  frequent.  Many  of  the  corporations  at  Lowell  .  .  . 
ran  "a  certain  quantity  of  their  machinery,  certain  portions  of  the  year, 
until  9,  and  half  past  9  o'clock  at  night,  with  the  same  set  of  hands. ".  .  . 
Even  the  operatives  were  often  against  a  reduction  of  hours,  believing 
that  it  would  result  in  a  reduction  of  wages.  Harriet  Farley,  editor  of 
the  Lowell  Offering  .  .  .  thought  it  would  work  hardship  to  widows  who 
were  toiling  for  their  children,  to  children  who  were  toiling  for  their 
parents,  and  to  many  others.1 

Toward  the  close  of  the  '30*5  Irish  immigration  began  to 
pour  into  the  mills  of  Massachusetts.  "  Under  the  preju- 
dice of  nationality  .  .  .  the  American  element  .  .  .  retired 
from  mill  and  factory. ' ' a  The  retirement  of  the ' '  daughters 
of  independent  farmers  "  and  their  replacement  by  Irish  im- 
migrants was  followed  by  a  reduction  of  the  hours  of  labor 
in  the  textile  mills.  In  1872  the  working  day  averaged  n 
hours. 3  A  generation  before,  in  1 835 ,  it  was  only  after  a  strike 
that  the  native  American  mill  hands  at  Paterson,  N.  J.,  won 
a  reduction  of  the  working  day  to  an  average  of  1 1 J^  hours.4 

Later  immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe 
brought  new  racial  elements  to  the  mills  and  factories  of 
Massachusetts.  The  effect  of  the  "new  immigration" 
upon  hours  of  labor  is  shown  in  Table  91 . 

TABLE  91. 

WEEKLY  HOURS  OF  LABOR  IN  MASSACHUSETTS,  1872  AND  1903.* 


Industry 

1872 

1903 

Reduction 

Boots  and  shoes 

n 

e-i 

6 

Cotton  goods  

66 

o«> 

n 

8 

Woolen  goods  

66 

58 

8 

*  Report  of  Woman  and  Child  Wage-Earners  in  United  Stofe$,vol.ix.. 
pp.  62-63,  66. 

•  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor ;  1869-1870, 
pp.  9 1-92.  J  See  Table  9 1 . 

« Report  of  Woman  and  Child  Wage-Earners,  vol.  ix.,  p.  63. 

5  Figures  computed  from  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Labor 
Statistics,  1872,  pp.  119-217;  Nineteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Com- 
missioner of  Labor,  Table  V. 


314  Immigration  and  Labor 

The  factory  workers  of  Massachusetts  gained  during  the 
period  of  the  new  immigration  an  average  reduction  of  7.3 
hours  a  week,  or  about  an  hour  and  a  quarter  per  day.  In 
the  woolen  mills  the  gain  in  time  was  even  slightly  above  the 
average,  although  forty  years  ago  the  mill  operatives  were 
mostly  Irish  immigrants,  whereas  lately  the  mills  have  been 
run  with  a  polyglot  help  made  up  of  all  the  races  of  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europe  and  Asiatic  Turkey  (as  has  been 
brought  to  public  attention  by  the  recent  strike  at  Law- 
rence) .  The  conditions  in  the  textile  mills  of  Massachusetts 
are  certainly  far  from  ideal;  nevertheless  fifty-eight  hours 
a  week  are  a  great  stride  in  advance  since  the  period  when 
the  customary  time  was  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  "as  long  as 
they  could  see. "  And  it  cannot  be  "said  that  all  improve- 
ments in  conditions"  of  the  textile  workers  "have  been 
secured  in  spite  of  the  presence  of  the  recent  immigrant,"1 
because  there  was  no  one  else  to  secure  those  improvements 
for  them. 

Taking  the  United  States  as  a  whole,  we  find  that  since 
the  beginning  of  the  "new  immigration"  the  hours  of  labor 
have  been  gradually  reduced;  "the  decrease  in  the  hours  of 
labor  in  1907,  as  compared  with  1890,  was  5.7  per  cent."2 
This  fact  shows  at  least  that  the  recent  immigrant  has  not 
hindered  the  movement  toward  better  conditions  of  employ- 
ment. It  would  require  some  proof  to  sustain  the  contention 
of  the  Immigration  Commission  that  "his  availability  and 
his  general  characteristics  and  attitude  have  constituted  a 
passive  opposition  which  has  been  most  effective."3 

The  Commission  has  made  no  investigation  on  the  sub- 
ject of  hours  of  labor,  except  in  a  casual  way.  There  is  a 
table  giving  the  hours  of  work  in  one  unnamed  steel  concern. 
It  appears  that  in  the  blast  furnace  department  all  hands, 
skilled  and  unskilled  alike,  work  twelve  hours.  In  all  other 
departments  the  unskilled  laborers  work  ten  hours,  whereas 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I ,  p.  541 

2  Bulletin  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor,  No.  77,  p.  4. 

»  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  i,  p.  541. 


Hours  of  Labor  315 

the  hours  of  the  skilled  and  semi-skilled  employees  vary  as 
follows:  in  7  occupations,  8  hours;  in  143  occupations,  10 
hours;  in  269  occupations,  12  hours.  In  the  coal  mines 
operated  by  the  same  concern,  the  laborers  work  10  hours, 
whereas  the  skilled  and  semi-skilled  employees  in  34  out  of 
42  occupations  work  12  hours,  and  only  in  8  occupations 
10  hours.1  The  unskilled  laborers  in  the  mines  and  mills 
are  mostly  recent  immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe,  whereas  the  skilled  and  semi-skilled  positions  are 
filled  almost  exclusively  by  native  Americans  and  old  Eng- 
lish-speaking immigrants.  The  Immigration  Commission 
itself  says  that  "the  immigrant  does  not  appear  .  .  .  at  the 
present  time  to  be  even  competing  with  him  [the  American] 
in  any  serious  way  for  the  better-paid  positions."2  It  is 
evident  that  the  longer  hours  of  the  English-speaking  em- 
ployees are  not  the  result  of  recent  immigration,  since  the 
recent  immigrants  themselves  work  shorter  hours. 

The  report  on  the  cotton  industry  shows  that  in  1845 
the  working  day  in  the  cotton  mills  averaged  12  hours 
and  10  minutes;  the  shortest  days  were  in  December  and 
January,  averaging  1 1  hours  and  24  minutes,  and  the  long- 
est in  April  were  as  high  as  13  hours  and  31  minutes.  At 
the  time  the  report  was  written,  the  working  hours  were  56 
per  week,  i.  e.,  10  hours  per  day  with  a  half  holiday  on  Satur- 
day.3 Thus  sixty  years  of  immigration  have  been  attended 
by  a  reduction  of  2  hours  and  50  minutes  in  the  length  of  the 
working  day  in  the  cotton  mills. 

The  most  complete  statistics  of  hours  of  labor  are  con- 
tained in  the  reports  of  the  factory  inspectors  of  the  State 
of  New  York,  covering  an  average  of  nearly  a  million  factory 
employees  annually ,  f or  1 90 1  - 1 9 1  o .  New  York  is  affected 
by  immigration  more  than  any  other  State  in  the  Union. 
The  period  under  consideration  has  witnessed  the  greatest 
volume  of  immigration  known  in  the  history  of  the  United 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  8,  Table  281,  pp.  377- 
381.  a  Ibid.,  vol.  8,  p.  583. 

J  Ibid.,  vol.  n,  pp.  273  and  290. 


3i6  Immigration  and  Labor 

•»> 

States,  and  the  bulk  of  that  immigration  has  been  from  the 
countries  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  The  reports  on 
factory  inspection  in  the  State  of  New  York,  therefore,  offer 
the  results  of  observation,  under  conditions  best  calculated 
to  bring  out  the  effects  of  immigration.  Moreover,  the 
figures  for  the  city  of  New  York  can  be  compared  with  those 
for  the  rest  of  the  State.  In  the  city  of  New  York  the 
foreign-born  population  furnished  in  1900,  50.7  per  cent  of 
all  persons  engaged  in  manufactures  and  mechanical  pur- 
suits, while  in  the  State  outside  of  New  York  the  ratio  was 
only  22.9  per  cent.  The  natives  of  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe  constituted  in  the  same  year  16.1  per  cent  of  the 
total  population  of  New  York  City,  and  2.1  per  cent  of  the 
total  population  of  the  State  outside  of  New  York  City.  By 
1910  their  proportion  in  New  York  City  increased  to 
24.1  per  cent  and  in  the  remainder  of  the  State  to  6.6  per 
cent.1 

The  per  cent  distribution  of  factory  operatives  by  the 
number  of  hours  of  work  in  and  outside  of  New  York  City 
is  given  in  Table  92  on  the  next  page.  The  figures  show: 

(1)  That  the  decade  of  the  heaviest  immigration  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  was  marked  by  a  gradual 
reduction  of  the  hours  of  labor  in  the  State  of  New  York; 

(2)  That  the  percentage  of  factory  operatives  working 
ten  hours  or  less  on  week  days  with  a  half -holiday  on  Satur- 
day was  much  greater  in  New  York  City  with  its  large 
colonies  of  alien  workers  than  in  the  remainder  of  the  State 
with  a  working  population  predominantly  native; 

(3)  That  after  a  decade  of  "undesirable  immigration" 
more  than  two  thirds  of  all  factory  workers  in  New  York 
City  work  ten  hours  or  less  on  week  days  with  a  half  holi- 
day on  Saturday,  whereas  in  the  remainder  of  the  State  the 
majority  still  work  longer  hours. 

The  preconceived  notions  about  the  "general  character- 

1 XIII.  Census.  Population,  vol.  i,  pp.  79,  148,  825-827,  832  (com- 
puted). 


Hours  of  Labor 


3*7 


istics"  of  the  recent  immigrant  do  not  stand  the  scrutiny 
of  incontrovertible  statistical  figures. 

TABLE  92. 

PER  CENT  DISTRIBUTION  OF  FACTORY  OPERATIVES  BY  WEEKLY  HOURS  OF 
LABOR  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY  AND  IN  NEW  YORK  STATE  OUTSIDE  OF 
NEW  YORK  CITY, 


New  York  City 

New  York  State  outside  of 
New  York  City 

Year 

57  hours  or 

58  hours  and 

57  hours  or 

58  hours  and 

less 

over 

less 

over 

I9OI 

53-7 

46-3 

I7.8 

82.2 

1902 

54-8 

45-2 

22.2 

77-8 

1903 

65.8 

34-2 

25.2 

74-8 

1904 
1905 

67.4 
68.8 

32.6 
31-2 

31-8 
34-5 

68.2 
65-5 

1906 

69.0 

31-0 

35-0 

65.0 

1907 

71.2 

28.8 

38.5 

61.5 

1908 

70.9 

29.1 

40.9 

59-1 

1909 

71.5 

28.5 

39-5 

60.5 

I9IO 

75-5 

24-5 

40.4 

59-6 

1  Annual  Report  of  the  New  York  Bureau  of  Labor,  vol.  ii.,  1910,  Table 
31,  p.  xlvi. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

CHILD  LABOR 

labor  has  a  depressing  effect  upon  the  rate  of 
wages.  Thousands  of  children  of  immigrants  are 
employed  in  the  mills  of  New  England  and  the  Middle 
Atlantic  States.  The  inference  which  readily  suggests  itself 
to  the  popular  mind  is  that  child  labor  is  the  product  of 
immigration.  It  is  a  historical  fact,  however,  that  child 
labor  originated  in  the  United  States  with  the  introduction  of 
the  factory  system  during  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Early  writers  on  economic  subjects  favored  the 
employment  of  children  in  factories,  because  it  would  save 
adult  male  labor  for  agriculture,  fishing,  shipping,  and  the 
skilled  trades.  Child  labor  was  advocated  on  religious  and 
philanthropic  grounds.  The  various  immigrant  races  which 
succeeded  one  another  in  the  nineteenth  century  found  child 
labor  as  an  integral  part  of  the  factory  system  in  the  United 
States.1 

During  the  ten-year  period  from  1899  to  1909,  with  its 
unprecedented  immigration,  the  average  number  of  children 
employed  in  factories  remained  stationary,  viz.,  in  1899- 
161,276,  in  1909—162,493,  while  the  relative  number  de- 
creased from  3.4  per  cent  to  2.4  per  cent  of  all  wage-earners.2 

1  Carlton,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  380-385. 

1  XIII.  Census,  vol.  viii.  Manufactures,  p.  253.  It  is  probable  that 
the  number  of  children  at  work  has  decreased  as  well.  The  number  of 
wage-earners  for  1899,  owing  to  the  method  of  computation  followed 
at  the  XII.  Census,  was  considerably  underestimated:  The  average 
number  was  computed  "by  using  12,  the-number  of  calendar  months, 
as  a  divisor  into  the  total  of  the  average  numbers  reported  for  each 
month."  The  effect  of  this  method  is  shown  in  the  case  of  twelve 

318 


Child  Labor 


The  most  significant  fact  to  be  noted  concerning  the  rela- 
tion between  child  labor  and  immigration  is  the  large  pro- 
portion of  children  employed  in  factories  in  States  where 
there  is  practically  no  immigrant  population.  Children  of 
native-born  American  parents  are  drawn  into  the  mills  as  a 
substitute  for  immigrant  labor.  This  conclusion  is  derived 
from  Table  93,  showing  the  dependence  of  factories  upon 
child  labor  in  six  leading  manufacturing  States,  according 
to  the  recent  census. 

TABLE  93. 

PER   CENT    OF    CHILDREN    UNDER    1 6    EMPLOYED    IN    FACTORIES,    IN   THE 

UNITED   STATES   AND   IN   SIX  LEADING   MANUFACTURING   STATES, 

1909,    AND    PER   CENT   OF   FOREIGN-BORN,    I9IO.1 


State 

Per  cent  of  children 
to  all  wage-earners 

Per  cent  of  foreign- 
born  to  total 
population 

United  States  

2.4 

14.7 

South  Carolina 

I2.Q 

O  4. 

North  Carolina  

II  .1 

o.^ 

IVtassachtisetts 

•I     C 

•IJ     C 

Pennsylvania            

*.* 

18.8 

Illinois 

I    c 

21    4. 

New  York                             

0.8 

^O.2 

In  the  four  leading  manufacturing  States  of  the  North 
with  a  large  immigrant  population,  child  labor  holds  a  sub- 
ordinate place  in  the  industrial  organization,  while  in  North 
and  South  Carolina  one  in  every  eight  or  nine  factory 
operatives  is  under  the  age  of  16.  The  lowest  per  cent  of 
child  workers  is  in  New  York,  which  is  overrun  by  immi- 
grants, old  and  new. 

selected  industries,  where  the  average  number  computed  "as  an  abstract 
unit  (like  the  foot-pound) "  was  475,473,  whereas  the  total  "computed 
on  the  basis  of  time  in  operation  would  have  exceeded  650,000, "  the 
variation  being  as  high  as  36  per  cent. — XII.  Census.  Manufactures, 
Part  I.,  pp.  cvi.,  ex.,  and  cxi. 

1  XIII.  Census,  vol.  viii.:  Manufactures,  pp.  270-271;  vol.  i:  Popu- 
lation,  pp.  161-162. 


320 


Immigration  and  Labor 


The  latest  available  statistics  of  the  distribution  of  chil- 
dren employed  in  manufactures  by  nativity  relate  to  the 
year  1900.  The  figures  are  given  in  Table  94. 

TABLE  94. 

DISTRIBUTION,  BY  PARENT  NATIVITY  AND  COLOR,  OF  THE  NUMBER  OP 
CHILDREN  OF  BOTH  SEXES,  IO  TO  15  YEARS  OF  AGE,  ENGAGED  IN 
MANUFACTURES  AND  MECHANICAL  PURSUITS,  BY  GEOGRAPHICAL 
DIVISIONS, 


Race  and  Nativity 

Con- 
tinental 
United 
States 

North 
Atlantic 
Division 

North 
Central 
Division 

Western 
Division 

South 
Atlantic 
Division 

South 
Central 
Division 

Number: 

White: 

Native  parents 

II4,88l 

46,534 

19.155 

1,696 

35,292 

I2,2O4 

Foreign  parents 

159.679 

104,574 

44.796 

3,199 

4,172 

3,038 

Colored 

9.7OQ 

AQT. 

670 

288 

A    78/1 

306s? 

Total  

283,860 

151,601 

64.,6'U) 

5,081 

44,248 

18,107 

Per  cent: 

White: 

Native  parents 
Foreign  parents 
Colored  

40.5 
56-3 
•5.2 

30.7 
69.0 

O.^ 

29.6 

69-3 
I.I 

62.9 

c  7 

79.8 

9-4 
10  8 

66.7 
16.6 
16  7 

Total  

IOO.O 

IOO  O 

IOO.O 

IOO  O 

IOO  O 

IOO   0 

In  the  country  at  large,  the  percentage  ratio  of  children 
of  each  nativity  employed  in  manufactures  corresponded  to 
the  percentage  of  all  breadwinners  of  the  same  nativity, 
engaged  in  manufacturing  and  mechanical  pursuits.2  In 
other  words,  on  the  whole  the  foreign-born  sent  to  the 
factories  no  more  than  their  quota  of  children.  There  is  a 
marked  difference,  however,  in  the  ratio  of  children  of  native 
parents  for  each  section  of  the  country:  in  the  South  the 

1  Occupations,  XII.  Census,  Table  LVIIL,  p.  clix. 

"The  per  cent  distribution,  by  parent  nativity  and  color,  of  persons 
of  all  ages  engaged  in  manufactures  in  the  United  States  was  as  follows: 
white  of  native  parentage,  39.8  per  cent;  white  of  foreign  parentage, 
56.0  per  cent;  colored,  4.2  per  cent. — Ibid.,  Table  XXXVI.,  p.  cxiii. 


Child  Labor  321 

overwhelming  majority  of  factory  workers  under  16  years 
of  age  are  children  of  native  parents. 

Another  important  fact  is  the  age  distribution  of  children 
employed  in  factories.  The  Immigration  Commission  in  its 
study  of  households  of  cotton-mill  operatives  in  the  North 
Atlantic  States  found  but  one  child  under  14  years  of  age  at 
work  in  a  total  of  795  children  between  6  and  13  years,  and 
that  a  French-Canadian.  *  There  are  as  yet  no  comparable 
data  more  recent  than  the  census  figures  for  1900.  The 
latter  are  presented  in  Table  95. 

TABLE  95. 

COTTON-MILL  OPERATIVES  UNDER  14  YEARS  OP  AGE  IN  THE   PRINCIPAL 

MANUFACTURING  STATES,  IQOO.8 
State  Number 

New  England: 

Maine 602 

New  Hampshire 527 

Massachusetts 199 

Connecticut 50 

Rhode  Island 615 

Middle  Atlantic:  \ 

New  York 51 

New  Jersey 1 16 

Pennsylvania 311 

Southern:  j 

North  Carolina 5515 

South  Carolina 103 

Georgia 2637 

Alabama 1608 

While,  as  has  been  shown  above,  the  absolute  number  of 
children  employed  in  factories  is  greater  in  the  North  than 
in  the  South,  the  children  under  14  in  the  cotton  mills  of 
the  South  far  outnumber  those  of  the  same  age  in  the  great 
manufacturing  States  of  the  North.  This  is,  no  doubt,  due 
to  the  child-labor  laws  of  the  Northern  States. 

No  one  in  the  Northern  States  to-day  defends  the  employ- 
ment of  children  under  14  in  factories.  In  the  Southern 
States,  however,  the  economic  needs  of  the  growing  manu- 
facturing industries  have  produced  eloquent  advocates  of 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  10,  Table  46,  p.  419. 
a  Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  Table  LXV.,  pp.  ckix.-clxxxv. 


322  Immigration  and  Labor 

child  labor  in  positions  of  influence. x  Foreign-born  wage- 
earners  are  a  negligible  factor  in  the  Southern  labor  market. 
The  growth  of  manufacturing  industries  in  the  South  is 
restricted  by  the  natural  increase  of  the  native  population. 
In  order  to  extend  their  operations,  the  manufacturers 
of  the  South  must  resort  to  the  employment  of  children,  as 
did  their  predecessors  in  New  England  a  century  ago  before 
immigration  came  to  supply  the  needs  of  American  industry. 

This  situation  is  by  no  means  confined  to  the  South. 
Absence  of  foreign  immigration  has  created  a  demand  for 
the  labor  of  native  American  children  in  the  canneries  and 
shoe  factories  of  rural  and  semi-urban  Missouri. 

The  rural  districts  of  Missouri  lost,  from  1900  to  1910, 
3 . 5  per  cent  of  their  population.  The  total  population  of  the 
State  increased  only  6  per  cent.  The  foreign-born  in 
1910,  as  well  as  in  1900,  constituted  7  per  cent  of  the  total 
population  of  the  State  at  large,  and  only?3.3  per  cent  of  the 
State  outside  of  St.  Louis  and  Kansas  City.  The  additions 
to  the  foreign-born  population  through  immigration  since 
the  census  of  1900  averaged  only  1310  persons  annually, 
but  the  increase  was  concentrated  in  St.  Louis  and  Kansas 
City,  whereas  the  remainder  of  the  State  lost  in  ten  years 
8380  of  its  foreign-born  population.2  The  statistics  of  the 
State  Labor  Bureau  show  an  increase  of  the  number  of 
working  children  in  the  smaller  cities,  the  towns  and  rural 
sections,  "which  can  be  traced  to  the  large  number  of  shoe 
factories  and  canneries  which  sprang  up,  outside  of  St.  Louis, 
Kansas  City,  and  St.  Joseph,  during  1908."  The  foreign- 
born  labor  supply  in  those  sections  is  negligible.  The 
Commissioner  of  Labor  offers  the  following  explanation  for 
the  increase  in  the  employment  of  children: 

1  "The  cotton  mills  are  set  forth  ...  as  the  savior  of  the  people,  re- 
ligiously, educationally,   and,   according  to  Dr.   Stiles,   physically." 
— Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science , 
Supplement,  March,  1910.  A.  J.  McKelwayrThe  Mill  or  the  Farm,  p.  54. 

2  XIII.    Census.    Population,  vol.  i.,  pp.  27,  61,  135,  149,  178  (com- 
puted). 


Child  Labor  323 

The  increase  in  working  women  and  children  in  1908  over  1907,  shown 
by  these  statistics,  does  not  mean  that  conditions  are  such  that  those 
who  ought  to  remain  at  home  and  take  care  of  domestic  affairs  must  go 
out  into  the  world  and  toil,  but  in  reality  is  due  to  an  increase  in  the 
number  of  establishments  in  which  the  light,  delicate  touch  of  a  gentle 
hand  is  needed,  instead  of  strength,  endurance,  and  mechanical  labor.  .  .  . 
It  is  necessary  to  state  here  that  while  the  canning  industry  of  Missouri 
is  still  in  its  infancy,  the  year  1908  was  probably  the  best  the  State  has 
ever  had  in  this  line,  and  that  is  why  more  employees  were  needed.  .  . . 
The  increase  in  child  labor  was  not  due  to  the  stringency,  the  increased 
cost  of  living,  or  to  the  poorer  condition  of  the  masses,  but,  instead,  to 
an  increased  demand  for  these  workers  from  the  new  canneries  and  shoe 
factories.  Both  these  lines  have  a  class  of  very  light  work,  suitable  only 
for  boys  and  girls,  which  does  not  pay  enough  weekly  for  older  persons. 
This  assertion  is  not  made  in  defence  of  child  labor,  but  merely  to  explain 
why  it  exists  in  canneries  and  shoe  factories. x 

The  explanation  sounds  very  similar  to  that  offered  in  the 
Southern  States. 2  It  accounts,  as  far  as  it  goes,  for  the  em- 
ployment of  children  in  canneries:  an  agricultural  com- 
munity is  the  natural  location  for  the  canning  industry, 
outside  labor  is  scarce  in  rural  districts  and  the  canning 
season  is  short.  No  local  advantage  for  the  shoe  factories, 
however,  exists  in  rural  Missouri.  The  centre  of  the  shoe 
manufacturing  industry  is  Massachusetts,  which  in  1905 
contributed  45  per  cent  of  the  total  output  of  the  United 
States.3  The  seat  of  the  shoe-manufacturing  industry  of 
Missouri  is  St.  Louis,  whose  output  increased  from  74  per 
cent  of  the  total  for  the  State  in  1899  to  81  per  cent  in  1904. 4 

1  Reports  of  the  Missouri  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  1909,  pp.  320-321. 

3 "  The  cotton  mills  were  the  most  powerful  opponents  [of  theLouisiana 
child-labor  law],  ably  seconded  by  the  canning  industries.  To  hear  the 
representatives  of  both  these  industries,  one,  not  knowing  any  better, 
would  have  been  convinced  that  the  most  healthful,  remunerative,  edu- 
cational place  in  the  entire  world  in  which  to  develop  children  was  in  a 
cotton  mill  or  an  oyster  cannery.  One  fairly  tingled  to  spend  the  rest 
of  life  shucking  oysters  or  peeling  shrimp."  Supplement,  Annals 
of  the  Am.  Acad.  of  Political  and  Social  Science,  March,  1909.  Jean  M. 
Gordon:  The  Forward  Step  in  Louisiana,  p.  163. 

3  Census  Report,  Manufactures.  1905,  Part  I.,  p.  ccxxx. 

« Ibid.,  pp.  ccxxx.  and  ccxxxi.  (computed). 


324  Immigration  and  Labor 

The  principal  inducement  for  locating  new  shoe  factories  in 
rural  sections  of  Missouri  appears  to  be  the  availability  of 
cheap  labor  of  native  American  women  and  children,  who 
can  underbid  the  male  immigrants  employed  in  the  shoe 
factories  of  Massachusetts. 


"  CHAPTER  XV 

LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 

Immigration  Commission  has  made  the  statement 
1  that "  the  recent  immigrant  has  not,  as  a  rule,  affiliated 
himself  with  labor  unions,  unless  compelled  to  do  so  as  a 
preliminary  step  toward  acquiring  work.  .  .  .  Where  he 
has  united  with  the  labor  organizations  he  has  usually 
refused  to  maintain  his  membership  for  any  extended  period 
of  time,  thus  rendering  difficult  the  unionizing  of  the  occu- 
pation or  industry  in  which  he  has  been  engaged.'*  This 
assertion  could  be  proved  only  by  a  statistical  study  of  the 
membership  of  labor  organizations.  It  is  a  characteristic 
fact  that  with  a  Federal  Bureau  of  Labor  and  a  number  of 
State  labor  bureaus  we  have  no  compilation  of  the  total 
number  of  organized  workers  in  the  United  States  for  a 
series  of  years. x  A  great  deal  of  information  on  the  subject 
is  scattered  in  the  published  reports  of  labor  conventions. 
The  inevitable  gaps  could  be  supplied  from  the  records  of 
labor  organizations.  The  Immigration  Commission,  how- 
ever, made  no  effort  to  secure  statistics  of  union  member- 
ship in  a  systematic  way  from  official  sources,  but  confined 
its  inquiries  in  the  main  to  the  heads  of  the  households 
covered  by  its  investigation.  The  report  of  the  Commission 
contains  data  concerning  3325  trade  unionists,  whereas  the 
total  membership  of  labor  organizations  in  the  United  States 
was  estimated  for  1910  at  2,625,000.  *  The  reports  of  the 
Commission  contain  a  few  fragmentary  data  on  the  member- 
ship of  labor  organizations,  apparently  obtained  from  their 

1  Reports  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xvii.,  p.  xviii. 
*New  York  Labor  Bulletin,  September,  1911,  p.  418. 

325 


326  Immigration  and  Labor 

officials,  but  these  data  flatly  contradict  the  conclusions  of 
the  Commission. 

We  learn  that  "practically  36  per  cent  of  the  total  number 
of  clothing  workers  in  New  York  are  organized;  while  80 
per  cent  of  the  cutters  are  members  of  the  cutters'  union. 
Of  the  organized  workers,  about  60  per  cent  are  Russian  and 
Polish  Hebrews,  30  per  cent  Italians,  and  10  per  cent  persons 
of  other  races  including  foreign  and  native-born."1  To 
understand  the  meaning  of  these  percentages,  we  must 
compare  them  with  the  percentage  of  organized  workers  in 
all  industries.  The  total  number  of  male  industrial  wage- 
earners  in  the  United  States  at  the  census  of  1900  can  be 
estimated  at  8,600,000 2;  since  very  few  women  are  affiliated 
with  labor  organizations  the  number  of  males  alone  need 
be  taken  into  consideration  in  computing  the  percentage  of 
organized  workers.  The  increase  of  the  population  of  the 
United  States  from  1 900  to  1 9 1  o  was  2 1  per  cent.  The  num- 
ber of  male  industrial  wage-earners  in  1910  can  accordingly 
be  estimated  at  10,400,000,  and  the  proportion  of  organized 
workingmen  in  all  industries  at  25  per  cent.  Thus  while, 
on  an  average,  only  25  per  cent  of  all  male  wage-eairners  in 
the  United  States  were  affiliated  with  labor  organizations, 
among  the  clothing  workers  in  New  York  City  36  per  cent 
were  organized,  all  but  one  tenth  of  the  organized  workers 
being  Russian  and  Polish  Hebrews  and  Italians.  Of  the 
most  skilled  among  them,  the  cutters,  80  per  cent  were  mem- 
bers of  their  union,  i.e.,  relatively  thrice  as  many  as  in  all 
industries  of  the  country  at  large. 

Of  course,  the  question  is  whether  the  condition  in  the 
clothing  industry  of  New  York  may  be  accepted  as  typical. 
The  reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission  furnish  no 
comparable  data  for  the  industries  of  the  country  at  large. 
The  results  of  the  study  of  households  comprise  less  than 
two  trade-unionists  in  every  1000.  Still,  this  being  the  only 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission? vol.  II,  p.  388. 
2 1.  A.  Hourwich,  "  Social -Economic  Classes  of  the  Population  of  the 
United  States,"  Journal  of  Political  Economy,  March,  1911,  p.  205. 


Labor  Organizations  327 

statistical  evidence  which  the  Immigration  Commission  has 
produced  in  support  of  its  conclusions  regarding  the  attitude 
of  recent  immigrants  toward  trade  unions,  it  is  worthy  of 
note  that  upon  the  Commission's  own  showing  trade- 
unionism  is  as  strong  among  the  immigrants  as  among  the 
native  American  workmen.  The  ratio  of  organized  workers 
to  all  male  wage-earners  in  each  population  group  is  shown 
in  Table  96. 

TABLE  96. 

ORGANIZATION  OF  NATIVE  AND  IMMIGRANT  LABOR.1 


_  Nativity  of  wage-earners 

Native-born  of  native  father: 

White  ............................................  13  .9 

Negro  ............................................  17.9 

Native-born  of  foreign  father  .......................  .  .  14.1 

Foreign-born  ........................................  13  .4 

While  on  the  whole  trade-unionism  is  very  weak  in  the 
field  covered  by  the  investigation  of  the  Commission,  it  is 
manifest  from  the  practical  uniformity  of  the  percentages 
for  each  group  that  distinctions  of  birth,  race,  and  color  do 
not  explain  this  weakness. 

Neither  could  a  line  be  drawn  in  respect  of  unionism  be- 
tween the  "  desirable  "  immigrants  from  Northern  and  West- 
ern Europe  and  the  "undesirable  aliens  from  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europe.  "  This  fact  is  brought  to  light  by  the  com- 
parison in  Table  97  of  the  principal  immigrant  races  that  are 
represented  by  at  least  500  persons  each2  in  the  statistics 
of  the  Immigration  Commission.  On  the  whole,  the  aver- 
age percentage  of  union  men  among  the  "undesirable  aliens" 
is  higher  than  among  the  immigrants  of  the  preferred  races. 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  i,  p.  417. 

a  Smaller  groups  have  been  omitted  because,  where  the  numbers  are 
small,  the  ratios  are  liable  to  be  influenced  by  exceptional  circumstances 
and  local  conditions;  for  example,  the  highest  percentage  of  organized 
workmen,  100  per  cent,  was  found  among  the  Mexicans,  because  the 
investigators  of  the  Commission  chanced  to  come  across  56  Mexican 
miners  in  a  unionized  mine.  —  Ibid.,  pp.  418-419. 


328 


Immigration  and  Labor 


TABLE  97- 

ORGANIZATION  OF  IMMIGRANT  LABOR1 


•'Desirable"  races 

Total 
number 

Organized 

Number 

Per  cent 

573 

524 
724 

515 

537 

I,IOI 

133 
87 
107 

48 
26 

51 

23.2 
16.6 
14.8 
9-3 
4-8 
4.6 

Irish  

Swedish    

German  

Total  

3.974 

452 

II.4 

"Undesirable"  races 
North  Italian  

881 
1,408 
761 
684 
1,706 
2,428 

1,501 
3,280 

351 

497 
163 
144 

234 
258 
146 
313 

39-8 

35-3 
21.4 

21.  1 

13.7 
10.5 

9-7 
9-5 

Hebrew          

Ruthenian  

Slovak  

South  Italian  

Magyar  

polish  

Total  

12,649 

2,106 

16.6 

The  percentage  of  trade-unionists  among  North  Italians  is 
nearly  three  times  as  high  as  among  native  Americans  of 
native  parentage;  the  Lithuanians  furnish  twice  as  many 
as  the  more  desirable  Englishmen;  the  Hebrews  twice  as 
many  as  the  Swedes;  the  Ruthenians  are  far  ahead  of  the 
Americans  of  native  stock;  even  the  South  Italians  can 
boast  a  percentage  twice  as  high  as  the  Germans;  the  Mag- 
yars and  the  Slovaks  march  in  front  of  the  Swedes;  and  the 
Poles,  who  are  at  the  tail  end  of  the  procession  of  undesirables 
from  Eastern  Europe,  still  outnumber  two  to  one  their  more 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  i,  p.  418. 


Labor  Organizations  329 

favored  kinsmen,  the  Bohemians  and  Moravians.  Con-  • 
sidering  that  the  native  Americans  and  the  members  of  the 
races  which  contributed  most  largely  to  the  earlier  immi- 
gration are,  as  a  rule,  engaged  in  higher  occupations,  where 
they  are  for  the  most  part  segregated  from  the  recent  immi- 
grants, it  is  clear  that  the  latter  could  not  be  an  obstacle  in 
the  way  of  organization  among  the  skilled  men ;  and  that  they 
have  not  been  an  obstacle  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  re- 
cent immigrants  themselves  furnish  a  higher  percentage  of 
organized  workmen. 

As  usual,  when  the  facts  do  not  fit  its  theory,  the  Com- 
mission seeks  to  qualify  the  plain  language  of  the  figures: 

These  figures  must  not,  however,  be  taken  as  representative  of  racial 
tendencies  except  in  a  few  cases,  for  the  reason  that  the  information 
shown  for  one  race  may  be  for  but  one  or  two  industries  in  which  the 
race  is  employed  and  which  are  so  controlled  by  labor  organizations  that 
membership  in  the  labor  unions  is  necessary  to  secure  employment. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  race  or  several  races  may  be  employed  in  an  indus- 
try or  industries  in  which  no  labor  unions  exist.  .  .  .  The  fact  that 
certain  races  are  most  extensively  employed  in  highly  unionized 
localities  and  industries  is  indicative  of  comparatively  greater 
assimilation  and  progressiveness  on  the  part  of  the  members  of  such 
races.1 

The  Commission  thus  assumes  that  affiliation  of  immi- 
grants with  labor  organizations  is  a  sign  of  their  "assimi- 
lation, "  which  implies  that  organization  of  labor  is  a  native 
growth,  and  that  the  foreigner  merely  imitates  the  ways  of 
the  native.  This  view  has  no  foundation  in  the  history  of 
organized  labor  in  the  United  States.  The  fact  is  that  the 
membership  of  most  of  the  labor  organizations  has  from 
their  inception  been  very  largely  foreign-born. 

Historians  have  traced  the  embryo  of  labor  organization 
in  America  to  the  colonial  period.  Labor  organizations 
sprang  up  here  and  there  during  the  first  quarter  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  Between  1825  and  1850  a  number  of 
labor  conventions  were  held.  But  all  labor  organizations 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  p.  419. 


330  Immigration  and  Labor 

before  the  Civil  War  were  ephemeral  and  soon  disintegrated. 
Their  effect  upon  economic  conditions  was  negligible. x 

The  depreciation  of  the  currency  and  the  consequent 
rise  of  the  cost  of  living  during  the  Civil  War  stimulated 
organization  among  workmen.  Still  the  figures  made  acces- 
sible by  the  research  of  Dr.  Fite  "plainly  caution  the 
present  generation  against  exaggerating  the  importance  of 
the  war-time  unions;  they  were  numerous  and  bold  in 
leadership,  but  they  were  small  in  membership  and  em- 
braced only  a  small  part  of  the  labor  world.  "2 

The  plan  of  the  X.  Census  comprised  an  inquiry  into  the 
subject  of  trade  unions  in  the  United  States.  The  statisti- 
cal data  collected  were  fragmentary.  The  development  of 
labor  organizations  up  to  1880  is  summed  up  as  follows: 

"But  very  few  of  the  unions  reported  upon,  so  far  as  their 
age  could  be  learned,  have  had  a  long  existence.  The  his- 
tory of  unionism  in  most  cases  is  that  an  organization  is 
effected  under  the  stress  of  some  difficulty,  flourishes  for  a 
while,  and  then  dies  out,  to  be  brought  to  life  again  in  case 
of  urgent  need."3 

Five  years  later,  Col.  Richard  J.  Hinton,  a  strong  labor 
sympathizer,  contrasting  the  British  with  the  American 
labor  organizations,  noted  with  regret  that  "in  the  United 
States  the  whole  movement  has  hardly  reached  the  stage  of 
toleration."4 

Official  inquiries  made  about  the  same  time  in  Illinois 
(1886)  and  New  Jersey  (1887)  established  the  fact  that  the 
majority  of  the  trade-unionists  and  Knights  of  Labor  were 

1  Mass.  Report  on  Statistics  of  Labor,  1906,  "The  Incorporation  of 
Trade  Unions,"  Part.  III.,  pp.  131-134.  Frank  Tracy  Carlton.  The 
History  and  Problems  of  Organized  Labor,  p.  41. 

•Emerson  David  Fite:  Social  and  Industrial  Conditions  during  the 
Civil  War,  pp.  204-205. 

*  X. 'Census,  vol.  xx.  Report  on  Trade  Societies  in  the  United  States,  p.  3. 

« Richard  J.  Hinton,  "American  Labor  Organizations,"  The  North 
American  Review,  January,  1885,  p.  49.  ~An  official  report  for  the  same 
year  states  that  "trade  unions  in  America  are  in  their  infancy  yet." 
Ninth  Annual  Report  of  the  Ohio  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  (1885,  p.  20). 


Labor  Organizations  331 

of  foreign  birth,  whereas  the  native  Americans  contributed 
less  than  their  quota  to  the  membership  of  labor  organiza- 
tions.1 This  fact  had  been  generally  known  before  from 
common  ^observation.  In  the  report  of  the  New  Jersey 
Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor  for  1884,  immigration  was 
held  directly  responsible  for  the  organization  of  labor  unions. 
The  writer  of  an  article  on  "Immigration  and  the  Labor 
Problem, "  after  stating  that  native  Americans  are  displaced 
by  laborers  "coming  from  countries  in  which  wages  are 
lower  than  our  standard"  and  where  the  standard  of  living 
is  therefore  lower,  goes  on  to  say  that 

to  the  American  laborer  of  twenty-five  or  thirty  years  since,  such  an 
occurrence  would  have  been  an  inconvenience  but  not  altogether  a  dis- 
aster. Failing  to  obtain  the  work  he  wanted  at  one  place  or  in  one  trade, 
he  would  turn  to  another  and  yet  another,  until  he  had  found  something 
by  which  he  could  live.  But  the  foreign-born  operative  has  but  little 
of  this  cat-like  facility  of  falling  upon  his  feet.  He  knows  but  a  single 
trade;  often,  in  the  subdivision  of  mechanical  employments,  which  is 
almost  uniformily  prevalent  and  becoming  still  more  so,  only  a  small 
fraction  of  that.  Thrown  out  of  his  place,  he  must  find  another  almost 
precisely  similar,  or  acquire  a  new  training  by  a  slow  and  painful  process, 
during  which  he  earns  little  or  nothing,  and  he  has  in  far  the  greater 
number  of  cases  nothing  laid  up.  That  men  should  grow  desperate  and 
wicked  under  such  circumstances  is  not  surprising.  That  they  should 
combine  in  leagues  of  various  kinds;  limit  the  hours  of  labor,  or  the 
amount  of  work  to  be  done  in  a  given  time;  refuse  to  work  with  appren- 
tices, or  men  outside  of  their  own  associations;  strike,  and  agree  not 
only  to  remain  idle  themselves,  but  to  prevent  others  from  working;  .  .  . 
is  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world.2 

Thus,  as  late  as  1884,  the  organization  of  labor  unions  was 
decried  in  a  State  report  as  un-American,  the  work  of  foreign- 
ers grown  "desperate  and  wicked."  Ten  years  later  the 
Minnesota  Bureau  of  Labor  undertook  an  investigation  to 
disprove  that  view.  It  is  instructive  to  contrast  the  state 
of  public  opinion  in  the  early  go's  as  reflected  in  the  report 

xThe  results  of  those  inquiries  are  given  in  the  Appendix,  Table  XXII. 
»  Seventh  A  nnual  Report  of  the  New  Jersey  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor 
and  Industries  (1884),  pp.  289-290. 


332  Immigration  and  Labor 

of  the  Minnesota  Labor  Bureau,  «  with  the  sentiment  of  our 
own  day,  when  a  Congressional  commission  regards  unionism 
as  a  manifestation  of  Americanism : 

It  has  been  repeatedly  charged  by  a  certain  class  of  writers  that 
American  trade  unions  are  conspiracies  to  prevent  American  boys  from 
acquiring  skilled  crafts.  This  charge  has  been  most  clearly  stated  by 
the  Century  Magazine,  May,  1893.  It  says:  "Under  the  present  con- 
ditions of  trade  instruction  and  employment  in  this  country  the  Ameri- 
can boy  has  no  rights  which  organized  labor  is  bound  to  respect.  He  is 
denied  instruction  as  an  apprentice,  and  if  he  be  taught  his  trade  in  a 
trade  school  he  is  refused  admission  to  nearly  all  trade  unions  and  is  boy- 
cotted if  he  attempts  to  work  as  a  non-union  man.  The  questions  of  his 
character  and  skill  enter  into  the  matter  only  to  discriminate  against 
him.  All  the  trade  unions  of  the  country  are  controlled  by  foreigners, 
who  comprise  the  great  body  of  their  members;  while  they  refuse  ad- 
mission to  the  trained  American  boy,  they  admit  all  foreign  applicants 
with  little  or  no  regard  to  their  training  or  skill.  In  fact  the  doors  of 
organized  labor  in  America,  which  are  closed  and  barred  against  Ameri- 
can boys,  swing  open  wide  and  free  to  all  foreign-comers.  Labor  in  free 
America  is  free  to  all  save  sons  of  Americans. "  The  same  magazine,  in  its 
issue  of  July ,  1 893 ,  says :  ' '  They  (the  trade  unions)  are  afraid  of  America 's 
independent  ideas  in  their  unions,  knowing,  as  they  do,  that  American 
workmen  are  not  so  servile  and  not  so  easily  led  as  the  more  ignorant 
foreign  workmen. " a 

The  report  of  the  Minnesota  Bureau  of  Labor  then  pro- 
ceeds to  disprove,  by  figures  relative  to  Minnesota  labor 
unions,  the  statements  made  in  the  Century  articles.  It 
shows  that  in  the  three  large  cities  of  the  State  62  per  cent 
of  males  of  voting  age  at  the  census  of  1890  were  foreign- 
born,  whereas  of  the  total  number  of  trade  unionists  who 
replied  to  the  inquiries  of  the  Bureau,  58.54  per  cent  were 

1  Fourth  Biennial  Report  of  the  Minnesota  Bureau  of  Labor  (1893-94), 

P-  175- 

3  The  author  of  a  doctor's  dissertation,  submitted  to  the  University 
of  Chicago  at  the  same  time,  strongly  advocated  restriction  of  immi- 
gration, to  ward  off  a  "peril"  which  threatened  American  labor  in  "the 
fact  that  our  trade  unions  are  almost  exclusively  controlled  by  foreigners 
.  .  .  incapable  by  long  oppression  in  the  industrial  slavery  of  Europe 
to  understand  or  appreciate  the  true  dignity  or  interests  of  American 
labor. " — Rena  M.  Atchison :  Un-A  merican  Immigration,  p.  1 05. 


Labor  Organizations  333 

born  in  the  United  States  and  41.46  per  cent  were  foreign- 
born.  But  a  table  in  the  report  shows  1 1  of  the  unions  with 
more  than  62  per  cent  of  foreign-born  members.  Those 
trades  were  the  granite  cutters  with  70.09,  bricklayers  with 
72.10,  tailors  with  100,  bakers  with  loo,  carpenters  with 
75-75»  stonecutters  with  72.75,  blacksmiths  with  100  per 
cent  of  foreign-born  members. 

The  change  of  public  sentiment  from  1894,  when  the 
"ignorant  foreign  workmen"  were  accused  of  organizing 
labor  unions,  to  1910,  when  the  ignorant  foreigners  were 
accused  of  keeping  away  from  labor  unions,  is  symptomatic 
of  the  progress  of  organized  labor  during  the  intervening 
period.  In  1894,  when  the  "ignorant  foreigners"  com- 
prised mainly  the  races  of  "the  old  immigration,"  trade 
unionism  was  still  weak;  after  eighteen  years  of  "undesir- 
able immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe," 
organized  labor  has  gained  in  numbers  and  won  public 
recognition. 

An  idea  of  the  comparative  strength  of  labor  organizations 
in  the  days  of  the  old  and  the  new  immigration  can  be  gained 
from  the  distribution  of  the  number  of  existing  unions  by  the 
period  of  their  organizations,  as  shown  in  Table  98. 

Very  few  of  the  existing  unions  were  organized  prior  to 
1880.  The  work  of  organization  has  since  been  proceeding 
at  an  increasing  rate  of  speed.  During  the  first  decade  of 
the  new  immigration,  1880-1890,  more  unions  were  organ- 
ized and  survived  than  throughout  the  whole  previous  his- 
tory of  the  United  States.  In  the  next  decade,  1890-1900, 
when  immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  first 
outran  "the  old  immigration,"  the  number  of  new  unions 
organized  in  five  of  the  six  States  (all  but  Illinois)  exceeded 
the  total  number  of  unions  which  had  survived  from  pre- 
vious times.  But  the  greatest  success  rewarded  the  efforts 
of  union  organizers  during  the  first  decade  of  the  present 
century.  In  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  and  Minnesota 
more  new  unions  were  organized  since  1900  than  during  the 
whole  ninteenth  century.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 


334 


Immigration  and  Labor 


Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  have  received  large  ac- 
cessions to  their  population  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe.  Thus  the  greatest  activity  in  the  field  of  organiza- 
tion coincided  with  the  unparalleled  new  immigration  of 
the  past  decade. 

TABLE  98. 

NUMBER  AND  DATE  OF  ORGANIZATION  OF  ACTIVE  LABOR  UNIONS  IN  SIX 
INDUSTRIAL   STATES.1 


1 

1 

5 

Period 

•g 

t> 

at 

"jj 

§ 

2 

1 

B 

6 

1 

| 

1 

a 

ii 

Total  number: 

Prior  to  1880.  .  . 

32 

24 

40 

65 

40 

ii 

1880-1889 

116 

6i 

126 

254 

75 

62 

1800-1800.  .  . 

107 

1  08 

7IO 

278 

24.1 

107 

Since  1900  

6583 

24.1 

107s 

Annual  average: 

1880-1889 

12 

6 

1  1 

2  r 

8 

6 

1800-1800.  .  . 

2O 

ii 

71 

28 

24. 

Since  1900  

71 

28 

QI6 

22 

The  aggregate  membership  of  labor  organizations  in  the 
United  States  and  Canada  was  estimated  by  the  Industrial 
Commission  at  1,300,000  for  July  i,  I9OI.7  The  aggregate 

'Compiled  from  Report  on  Statistics  of  Labor,  Massachusetts,  1908, 
pp.  185-186.  Ohio  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  24th  Annual  Report, 
1900,  p.  297.  Minnesota  Labor  Report,  1905-6,  p.  365;  ibid.,  1907-8,  p. 
83.  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  of  Illinois,  1886,  p.  198; 
ibid.,  1901,  p.  298.  Report  of  the  Connecticut  Bureau  of  Labor  Sta- 
tistics, 1909-1910,  p.  217.  J2d  Annual  Report  of  the  Missouri  Bureau  of 
Labor.  a  Periods:  Up  to  1880;  1881-1890;  1891-1900;  1901-1908. 

* 1900-1908.       < 1900-1909.       s 1900-1908.       6  In  1900-1901 — 183. 

7  The  total  membership  of  enumerated  unions  was  estimated  at 
1,208,000,  to  which  was  added  an  arbitrary  allowance  of  191,100  for 
the  Knights  of  Labor  "and  unenumerated  organizations. "  The  former 
were  at  the  time  in  a  moribund  condition,  and  the  Industrial  Commission 
believed  that  its  estimate  was  subject  to  a  probable  error  of  100,000. — 
Reports  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xvii.,  p.  xix. 


Labor  Organizations  335 

membership  of  all  unions  in  1910  was  estimated  by  the  New 
York  Bureau  of  Labor  at  2,625,000  for  the  United  States 
and  Canada.1  Thus  in  nine  years  from  1901  to  1910,  with 
their  unprecedented  immigration,  the  membership  of  la- 
bor organizations  doubled,  whereas  the  average  number 
of  wage-earners  employed  in  manufactures  increased  from 

1899  to  1909  only  about  40  per  cent,2  the  number  of 
railway  employees  from  1900  to  1910,  67  per  cent,3  etc. 

The  reports  of  the  New  York  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics 
since  1897  furnish  a  record  of  the  annual  increase  or  decrease 
of  union  membership,  which  permits  of  a  comparative  study 
of  the  relation  between  trade-unionism  and  immigration. 
New  York  State  is  the  receptacle  of  more  than  its  propor- 
tionate share  of  "the  new  immigration."  New  York  City 
is  a  temporary  stopping-place  for  many  a  stranded  immi- 
grant lacking  the  funds  for  continuing  his  journey  to  final 
destination.  The  evil  effects  of  immigration,  if  such  they 
be,  must  appear  in  aggravated  form  in  the  State  of  New 
York.  The  relation  between  union  membership  and  immi- 
gration is  shown  graphically  in  Diagram  XX.4  The  curves 
representing  trade-union  membership  and  the  immigration 
of  breadwinners5  run  almost  parallel,  showing  that  union 

1  New  York  Labor  Bulletin,  Sept.,  1911,  p.  418. 

2  XIII.     Census,   volume  viii.      Manufactures,    p.    240.     The   real 
increase  of  the  average  number  of  wage-earners  is  smaller,  because  the 
number  for  1910  is  the  average  of  12  monthly  pay-rolls,  whereas  in 

1900  the  average  number  was  computed  "by  using  12,  the  number  of 
calendar  months,  as  a  divisor  into  the  total  of  the  average  numbers 
reported  for  each  month. "    The  effect  of  this  change  of  method  is  shown 
in  the  case  of  twelve  selected  industries,  where  the  average  number 
computed  "as  an  abstract  unit  (like  the  foot-pound)"  was  475,473, 
whereas  the  total  "computed  on  the  basis  of  time  in  operation  would 
have  exceeded  650,000, "  the  variation  being  as  high  as  36  per  cent. — 
XII.     Census.    Manufactures,  Part  I.,  pp.  cvi.,  ex.,  cxi. 

*  Interstate  Commerce  Commission.  Twenty-third  Annual  Report 
tf  the  Statistics  of  Railways,  pp.  33-34. 

« The  figures  from  which  the  latter  is  plotted  will  be  found  in  the 
Appendix,  Table  XXIII. 

«A11  immigrants  save  those  that  have  "no  occupation  (including 
women  and  children),"  in  official  terminology. 


336 


Immigration  and  Labor 


membership  rises  and  falls  as  immigration  rises  and  falls. 
The  New  York  statistics  thus  disprove  the  conclusion  of  the 

DIAGRAM  XX. 


r~ 

b 

^ 

a 


\_ 


/: 


XX.    Labor  union  membership  in  the  State  of  New  York,  number  of 

immigrant  bread-winners  destined  for  the  State  of  New  York 

and  combined  imports  and  exports  through  the  port  of 

New  York.  1897-1910. 

Immigration  Commission  that  "liis  (the  recent  immigrant's) 
availability  and  his  general  characteristics  and  attitude  have 
constituted  a  passive  opposition  which  has  been  most 


Labor  Organizations  337 

effective."1  The  third  curve  represents  the  aggregate  ex- 
ports and  imports  through  the  port  of  New  York.  The 
import  and  export  trade  of  New  York  gives  employment, 
directly  and  indirectly,  to  a  large  portion  of  the  population 
of  the  city.  It  feeds  the  traffic  of  all  railways  in  the  State 
with  terminals  in  New  York.  The  fluctuations  of  the  export 
trade  may  therefore  be  taken  as  an  index  of  the  business 
situation  in  the  State  of  New  York.  It  will  be  observed  that 
the  curve  of  union  membership  follows  very  closely  the 
curve  of  foreign  trade.  The  fluctuations  of  union  member- 
ship accordingly  depend  upon  the  business  situation.  The 
latter  likewise  determines  the  fluctuations  of  immigration. 
The  harmonious  movement  of  immigration  and  organiza- 
tion among  workers  is  thus  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that 
both  are  stimulated  by  business  prosperity  and  discouraged 
by  business  depression. 

The  question  may  be  raised,  however:  given  the  indus- 
trial expansion  of  the  past  decade,  would  not  the  progress  of 
trade-unionism  have  been  greater  "without  the  availability 
of  the  recent  immigrant  labor  supply"?  An  answer  to  this 
question  is  furnished  by  the  comparative  statistics  of  union 
membership  in  the  States  of  New  York  and  Kansas  for  1900- 
1909.  While  New  York  has  received  great  numbers  of 
immigrants  during  this  period,  the  ratio  of  foreign-born  in 
Kansas  has  been  steadily  decreasing  since  1880:  in  the 
latter  year  the  ratio  was  n  per  cent,  in  1910  only  8  per 
cent.  The  proportion  of  foreign-born  from  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europe  to  the  population  of  Kansas  was  only  2  per 
cent.2  At  the  same  time  Kansas  has  shared  in  the  indus- 
trial expansion  of  the  period,  as  witnessed  by  the  amounts 
paid  out  in  wages  to  factory  operatives  in  1899  an(^  i9°9» 
shown  in  Table  99.  While  the  increase  in  the  United  States 
at  large  amounted  to  71  per  cent  and  in  New  York  City  to 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  i.,  p.  541. 

2  Statistical  Abstract,  1910,  Table  25,  p.  53.    XIII.  Census.    Popula- 
tion, vol.  i.,  p.  817;  vol.  ii.,  p.  669. 


338 


Immigration  and  Labor 


65  per  cent,  in  Kansas  it  reached  100  per  cent.  The 
comparative  growth  of  trade-unionism  in  New  York  and 
Kansas  in  1900-1909  must  accordingly  reveal  the  effects  of 

TABLE  99. 

TOTAL  WAGES  PAID  TO  FACTORY  OPERATIVES  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  AND 
IN  THE  STATES  OF  NEW  YORK  AND  KANSAS  (MILLIONS  OF 

DOLLARS),  1899  AND  1909. x 


1899 

1909 

Per  cent 
of  increase 

United  States  

2008 

^427 

71 

New  York  . 

«7 

Gey 

6& 

Kansas    

I* 

26 

100 

industrial  expansion  upon  the  progress  of  organization 
among  the  wage-earners,  with  and  without  the  availability 
of  the  recent  immigrant. 

Table  100  shows  the  ratio  of  organized  workers  in  each 
of  the  two  States  to  its  total  urban  population.2  The 
relative  number  of  organized  workmen  is  higher  in  New 
York  with  a  large  and  growing  immigrant  population 
drawn  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  than  in  Kansas 
with  a  small  and  decreasing  foreign-born  population. 
Prior  to  the  recent  crisis  the  percentage  of  organized 
workmen  in  New  York  was  more  than  twice  as  high  as  in 
Kansas.  The  industrial  depression  of  1909  reduced  the 
percentage  of  organized  workmen  in  New  York,  while  in 
Kansas  the  year  1908  was  a  record  year  for  labor  organiz- 
ations. Yet  even  then  the  proportion  of  organized  work- 
men in  New  York  remained  higher  than  in  Kansas. 

1  XIII.  Census,  vol.  viii.    Manufactures,  Table  III,  pp.  542,  543. 

*  Urban  population  is  defined  by  the  census  as  "that  residing  in  cities 
and  other  incorporated  places  of  2500  inhabitants  or  more."  (XIII. 
Census,  vol.  i.  Population,  p.  53.)  The  population  for  1900  is  that 
enumerated  by  the  census.  The  urban  population  for  each  subsequent 
year  is  estimated  in  accordance  with  the  method  followed  by  the  United 


Labor  Organizations 


339 


TABLE  loo. 

PER  CENT  RATIO  OF  TRADE-UNION  MEMBERSHIP  TO  URBAN  POPULATION 
IN  NSW  YORE  AND  KANSAS,  1900-1909.* 


Year 

New  York 

Kansas 

1900 

4.6 

1-9 

1901 

5-0 

2-3 

1902 

5-8 

2.1 

1903 

6-7 

2.6 

1904 

6.4 

3<> 

1905 

6.1 

3<> 

1906 

6.2 

2.8 

1907 

6.6 

2.9 

1908 

5-5 

5-2 

1909 

5-3 

4.4 

The  preceding  ratios  may  be  affected  by  the  character  of 
the  urban  population  in  the  two  States :  if  the  proportion  of 
wage-earners  to  the  whole  population  in  New  York  was 
higher  than  in  Kansas,  the  difference  might  in  a  measure 
account  for  the  higher  percentage  of  organized  workmen. 
These  doubts  are  resolved  by  Diagram  XXI.,  which  shows 
for  each  State  the  ratio  of  union  membership  to  the  num- 
ber of  industrial  wage-earners  at  the  XII.  Census.2  The 
curve  for  New  York  runs  throughout  the  whole  period 
above  that  for  Kansas. 

These  differences  are  by  no  means  accidental.  In  the 
early  period  of  trade-unionism  in  the  United  States,  when  it 
was  generally  regarded  as  a  "foreign"  plant  and  denounced 
as  "un-American,"  contemporary  observers  sought  to  ex- 
plain the  aloofness  of  the  native  American  wage-earners 
from  labor  organizations  by  their  "indisposition  to  identify 
themselves  permanently  with  any  class." 

The  foreign  workman  has  the  tradition  of  many  generations  and  the 
walls  of  caste  to  restrain  him  within  certain  limits  as  to  his  occupation; 

States  Bureau  of  Statistics,  by  adding  to  the  population  of  the  preceding 
year  one  tenth  of  the  increase  from  1900  to  1910. 

*  See  Appendix,  Table  XXIV.  a  Ibid. 


DIAGRAM  XXI. 


-   s 


\ 


§     s 


XXI.    Male  union  membership  in  the  states  of  New  York  and 
Kansas,  1900-1909;  Per  cent  ratio  to  the  number  of  in- 
dustrial wage-earners  in  1900. 
340 


Labor  Organizations  341 

he  has  no  possibilities  beyond  a  given  sphere,  and  is  trained  and  de- 
veloped within  it.  Thus  environed,  his  career  and  ambitions  lie  in  the 
paths  his  fathers  have  trod,  and  his  associations  with  his  fellow  craftsmen 
make  the  trade  union  his  natural  and  necessary  place.  Transported  to 
this  country  he  brings  his  feelings  for  the  union  and  his  class  associa- 
tions with  him  as  a  habit.  But  the  American  mechanic's  boy  is  born  to 
no  conditions  in  life  from  which  he  may  not  rise,  of  hope  to  rise,  or 
which  at  least  he  may  not  abandon  for  better  or  worse.  All  the  pre- 
cepts of  the  schools  and  teachings  of  observation  suggest  other  ways  of 
making  a  living,  or  at  least  other  avenues  in  life,  than  those  of  his 
father.* 

In  a  later  publication  of  the  Massachusetts  Labor  Bureau 
the  unstable  character  of  trade  unions  in  New  England  up 
to  1880  is  explained  by  the  fact  "that  early  New  England 
workmen  seldom  regarded  their  condition  as  journeymen  as 
likely  to  be  permanent.  They  nearly  all  looked  forward 
with  some  degree  of  hope  to  a  time  when  they  would  become 
employers."* 

This  condition  still  exists  in  smaller  communities  where 
many  of  the  native  American  wage-earners  are  home-own- 
ers,3 and  in  country  districts  where  the  factory  workers  are 
drawn  from  the  farms  of  the  neighborhood.  As  a  result,  we 
find  labor  better  organized  in  New  York  City  with  a  high 
percentage  of  recent  immigrants  than  in  the  remainder 
of  the  State  of  New  York,  with  a  predominantly  native 
population. 

In  Table  101,  the  distribution  of  male  trade-union  mem- 
bership between  the  city  of  New  York  and  the  remainder  of 
the  State  is  presented  in  parallel  columns  with  the  distribu- 
tion of  male  breadwinners  in  non-agricultural  pursuits. 

In  New  York  City  one  half  of  all  breadwinners  in  1900 
were  foreign-born,  whereas  in  the  remainder  of  the  State 
three  fourths  were  of  native  birth.  At  the  same  time  New 
York  City  had  more  than  its  proportionate  share  of  trade- 

1  Fourth  Annual  Report  of  the  Illinois  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor 
(1886),  p.  228. 

*  Massachusetts  Labor  Bulletin,  No.  10,  April,  1899,  p.  55. 
» Pratt,  he.  cit.,  p.  99. 


342 


Immigration  and  Labor 


TABLE  101. 

COMPARATIVE  UNION  MEMBERSHIP  IN  THE  STATE  OF   NEW  YORK  AND  IN 
THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK,  I9OO.1 


Geographical 
division 

Union  membership 
(male) 

Male  breadwinners  in  non- 
agricultural  pursuits  — 
per  cent 

Thousands 

Per  cent 

Ail 

Nativities 

Foreign-born 
Ratio  to  total 

State  

234 
146 
88 

100 
62 

38 

100 

56 
44 

New  York  City 

11 

Outside  of  New  York  City 

union  membership.  The  margin  in  favor  of  New  York  City 
would  be  still  greater  if  instead  of  all  breadwinners  indus- 
trial wage-earners  alone  were  considered,  the  proportion  of 
the  latter  being  larger  outside  of  the  great  cities  than  in 
cities  with  a  population  of  over  3oo,ooo.2 

The  figures  are  for  the  year  1900.  The  conditions  have 
not  changed  since,  as  appears  from  Table  102  on  p. 

343- 

The  membership  of  the  trade  unions  in  New  York  City 
more  than  doubled  from  1900  to  1910,  whereas  in  the  re- 
mainder of  the  State  it  increased  by  less  than  three  fifths. 
This  difference  was  not  due  to  a  proportionate  increase  of 
the  population  of  New  York  City  compared  with  the  urban 
population  of  the  remainder  of  the  State:  while  the  popu- 
lation of  New  York  City  increased  somewhat  faster  than 
the  urban  population  outside  of  New  York  City,  the  relative 
number  of  organized  workers  in  New  York  City  increased 
still  faster.  The  figures  furnish  unmistakable  evidence  of 
greater  progress  of  trade  unions  at  the  gate  of  the  United 
States,  parallel  with  the  growth  of  the  foreign-born  popu- 

1  Report  of  the  New  York  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  1910,  vol.  ii.,  pp. 
xlix.,  L,  15.  Occupations,  XII.  Census,  Tables  41  and  43. 

•Hourwich,  loc.  cit..  Journal  of  Political  Economy,  April,  1911, 
P-  324- 


Labor  Organizations 


343 


TABLE  102. 

COMPARATIVE  UNION  MEMBERSHIP  IN   THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK  AND  IN 
THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK,  1 900-1910. x 


Both  sexes 

Year 

State 

New  York 
City 

Outside  of 
New  York 
City 

Union  membership: 

Absolute  number 
u              « 

Increase 

1900 
1910 

Thousands 

245 

48-2 
Per  cent 

Thousands 

154 
338 
Per  cent 

no 

Thousands 

91 
144 

Per  cent 
V8 

Relative  number: 

<!                              II 

Urban  population: 

Foreign-born  white: 
Ratio  to  urban 

1900 
1910 
1900 
1910 

IQOO 

100 
100 
100 
100 

63 

1° 
64 

66 
37 

37 
30 
36 
34 

2* 

IOIO 

4.O 

21* 

lation,  than  in  the  remainder  of   the  State  where  eight 
ninths  of  the  population  are  American-born. 

Still,  the  strength  of  organized  labor  is  measured  above 
mere  numbers  by  its  ability  to  marshal  its  forces  in  con- 
tests over  terms  of  employment.  The  strike  statistics 
which  have  been  collected  by  the  United  States  Bureau  of 
Labor  do  not  extend  to  the  period  prior  to  1881,  but  there 
are  official  figures  for  Massachusetts  going  as  far  back  as 
1830,  and  for  Pennsylvania  as  far  as  1835.  The  data  are 
presented  in  Table  103  on  the  next  page: 


1  Report  of  the  New  York  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics ;  1910,  vol.  ii.,  pp. 
xlix.,  1.,  15.   XIII.  Census.   Population,  vol.  i.,  pp.  179, 191  (computed). 


344 


Immigration  and  Labor 


TABLE  103. 

NUMBER  OF  STRIKES  IN  MASSACHUSETTS,  1830-1905,  AND  PENNSYLVANIA, 

1835-1905. ' 


Massachusetts 

Pennsylvania 

Period: 
Prior  to  1880  

ISO 

IS2 

1881-1905: 
Total  
Annual  average  

2774 
III 

4156 

166 

Making  every  allowance  for  the  incompleteness  of  the  re- 
ports of  early  strikes,  we  see  once  more  from  the  figures  for 
two  of  the  leading  industrial  States  that  in  the  days  of  "the 
old  immigration*'  the  labor  movement  was  negligible:  the 
average  number  of  strikes  in  Pennsylvania  during  one  year 
since  1881  exceeds  the  total  for  the  preceding  half -century. 

In  order  to  trace  the  effect,  if  any,  of  the  new  immigration 
upon  the  strike  movement,  the  period  1896-1905,  when 
immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  became 
predominant,  is  next  compared  with  the  ten-year  period 
next  preceding. 

Table  104  shows  an  increase  of  the  number  of  strikers  in 
general,  and  of  organized  strikers  in  particular.  Taking  the 
number  of  industrial  wage-earners  in  1890  as  the  average 
for  1886-1895  and  the  number  in  1900  as  the  average  for 
1896-1905,  we  find  an  increase  of  34  per  cent2;  the  annual 
average  number  of  strikers  increased  at  the  same  time 
29  per  cent,  and  the  annual  average  of  organized  strikers 
38  per  cent.  In  other  words. the  strike  movement  kept 

1  Eleventh  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  of  Massa- 
chusetts, 1880,  p.  65.  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Internal  Affairs  of 
Pennsylvania,  Part  III.,  Industrial  Statistics,  1880-1881,  p.  388. 
Twenty-first  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  1906,  pp.  492- 
495- 

aHourwich,  loc,  cit.  Journal  of  Political  Economy,  March,  1911, 
p.  213. 


Labor  Organizations 


345 


TABLE  104. 

STRIKES   AND  IMMIGRATION  OF  BREADWINNERS  BY  DECENNIAL  PERIODS, 

1 886-1 905.' 


Period 

Annual  average  number  (thousands) 

Percent   of  estab- 
lishments in  which 
strikes  failed 

Immigrant 
bread 
winners 

Strikers 

Total 

Organized 

Unorgan- 
ized 

Organ- 
ized 

Unorgan- 
ized 

1886-1895  

241 

389 

267 

344 

208 
287 

59 

57 

41.8 
29.6 

55-2 
58.4 

1806-1005 

pace  with  the  growing  number  of  industrial  wage-earners. 
The  percentage  of  unsuccessful  organized  strikes  decreased. 
The  movement  was  apparently  not  affected  either  by 
the  increase  of  immigration,  or  by  the  change  in  its  racial 
make-up. 

Immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  have  at 
times  acted  as  strike  breakers,  but  so  have  native  Ameri- 
cans.2 In  1904,  during  the  strike  of  the  miners  of  the  Ala- 
bama district,  "the  operators  brought  in  Magyars,  Slovaks, 
Greeks,  Servians,  Italians,  and  Finns,  as  well  as  native 
whites,  as  strike  breakers."3  It  is  a  matter  of  common 

1 XXI.  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  Table  IV,  pp.  478- 
479,  and  Table  V,  pp.  490-491.  Reports  of  the  Commissioner-General  of 
Immigration,  1903-1905.  Summary  of  Commerce  and  Finance,  June 
1903,  pp.  4422-4423.  Statistical  Abstract  of  the  United  States,  1910,  p- 
246,  Table  150. 

3 In  the  big  strike  of  1877  "many  American  girls,  it  was  said,  acted 
as  strike  breakers,  replacing  Bohemian  women. "  In  the  cigar  industry, 
in  general,  "when  immigrant  women  went  on  strike  they  were  replaced 
-with  comparative  ease  by  American  girls. " — Report  of  Woman  and  Child 
Wage-Earners  in  the  United  States,  vol.  ix.,  p.  199-201. 

3  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  9,  p.  197.     In  1908, 

''during  the  strike  [of  the  miners  of  Birmingham],  considerable  numbers 

of  immigrants  were  brought  in  as  strike  breakers,  but  in  not  so  great  a 

proportion  as  native  whites  from  other  coal-mining  sections. "    — Ibid., 

,  2pp, 


346  Immigration  and  Labor 

knowledge,  however,  that  in  many  strikes  of  national 
dimensions,  most  of  the  participants  were  immigrants 
from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe. 

The  Immigration  Commission  has  given  expression  to  the 
popular  condemnation  of  the  Southern  and  Eastern 
European  immigrants  for  their  alleged  "tractability"  and 
their  "willingness  seemingly  to  accept  indefinitely  without 
protest  certain  wages  and  conditions  of  employment."1  It 
is  worthy  of  note  that  the  same  criticism  was  directed  against 
English  immigrants  when  they  were  among  the  "new 
immigration."  The  following,  from  a  labor  paper  published 
in  1845,  has  a  familiar  sound: 

Capital  is  striving  to  fill  the  country  with  foreign  workmen. 
English  workmen,  whose  abject  condition  in  their  own  country  has  made 
them  tame,  submissive  and  "peaceable  orderly  citizens";  that  is,  work  14 
and  16  hours  per  day,  for  what  capital  sees  fit  to  give  them,  and  if  it  is 
not  enough  to  provide  them  a  comfortable  house  to  shelter  their  wives 
and  children  and  furnish  them  with  decent  food  and  clothes,  why  they 
must  live  in  cellars,  go  hungry  and  ragged.3 

To-day  the  complaint  against  the  immigrants  from  South- 
ern and  Eastern  Europe  who  are  "mainly,  unskilled 
laborers,"  is  that  "on  the  whole"  they  "have  not  shown 
the  same  readiness  to  join  trade-unions  ...  as  have  those 
coming  from  the  older  immigration  from  the  north  and  west 
of  Europe."3  In  general,  as  shown,  the  supposed  connec- 
tion between  trade-unionism  and  the  points  of  the  compass 
is  not  sustained  by  the  statistics  of  the  Immigration  Com- 
mission. In  regard  to  unskilled  laborers,  in  particular,  it 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  "on  the  whole"  they  are  not 
eligible  "to  join  trade-unions,"  the  latter  being  confined 
mainly  to  skilled  crafts. 

There  is  a  tendency  among  certain  theorists  to  idealize 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I ,  pp.  531 ,  541.  Jenks 
and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  191,  206-207. 

*  Documentary  History  of  American  Industrial  Society,  vol.  viii.,  1840- 
1860.  Voice  of  History,  Fitchburg,  Massachusetts,  Oct.  9, 1845. 

3  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit*,  p,  207. 


Labor  Organizations  347 

the  trade-union  in  the  abstract  as  the  economic  organization 
of  "the  working  class."  The  craft  union,  as  it  exists  in 
real  life,  not  in  theory,  partakes  of  the  nature  of  the  mediae- 
val guild:  its  object  is  to  assure  work  to  its  members.  To 
accomplish  this  purpose,  it  seeks  to  limit  the  number  of 
competitors.1 

To  criticise  individual  union  leaders  for  this  attitude  is  to 
betray  a  misconception  of  the  essence  of  the  craft  union: 
its  exclusiveness  is  not  an  "abuse,"  it  is  a  policy.  To 
organize  "the  working  class"  is  not  the  aim  of  the  trade 
union. a  It  strives  only  to  organize  as  many  f ellow-craf ts- 

*  The  policy  of  the  flint-glass  workers'  union  is  thus  described  in  the 
Reports  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  325:  "Being  a  highly 
skilled  trade,  it  is  not  troubled  by  the  immigration  of  unskilled  laborers. 
Those  who  come  to  this  country  are  mainly  from  Norway,  Sweden,  and 
Alsace-Lorraine,  where  they  have  learned  their  trade.  There  are  two 
considerations  which  restrict  the  entrance  of  immigrants.  First,  the 
initiation  fee  imposed  by  the  union.  This  fee  was  formerly  $100  for 
foreigners,  and  $3  for  Americans.  The  fee  has  been  reduced  to  $50  for 
foreigners,  the  American  fee  remaining  at  $3.  There  is  an  opinion  in 
the  union  that  this  extreme  discrimination  against  foreigners  is  not 
advantageous,  as  it  compels  them  to  enter  non-union  shops  instead  of 
joining  the  union.  This  is  known  to  have  been  the  fact  in  at  least  one 
large  non-union  establishment  manned  mainly  by  foreigners. "  In  this 
case  discrimination  was  practised  against  highly  skilled  immigrants  from 
Northern  and  Western  Europe,  usually  classified  as  "desirable. " 

aThe  philosophy  of  trade-unionism  is  expressed  without  equivocation 
in  the  following  quotation  from  the  testimony  of  Mr.  A.  A.  Roe,  repre- 
senting the  railway  brotherhoods,  before  the  committee  on  Immigra- 
tion and  Naturalization: 

' '  Mr.  Roe.  I  take  this  position,  without  any  hesitancy  at  all,  that  as  I 
see  it,  the  influx  displaces  the  workman  of  this  country,  the  wage-earner, 
and  causes  a  competition  for  his  position,  increases  the  number  of  appli- 
cants for  work.  This  brought  into  existence  the  organizations,  drove 
men  together.  They  had  to  get  into  the  organizations  to  give  them 
power  to  maintain  their  position,  to  save  the  comforts  of  their  homes, 
and  if  you  say  that  is  a  good  thing,  well  and  good. 

"  Mr.  Sabath.  It  is  a  good  condition:  organization  is  a  good  con- 
dition, and  if  they  are  responsible  for  any  improvements  in  the  condition 
of  the  workingmen,  then  they  are  entitled  to  thanks. 

"  Mr.  Roe.    A  better  condition  would  be  one  that  would  not  require  the 


348  Immigration  and  Labor 

men  as  are  necessary  to  control  the  trade.  There  is  no  place 
for  the  unskilled  laborer  in  the  trade-union  of  the  prevailing 
type.  There  are  situations  where  the  interests  of  the  craft 
union  may  be  antagonistic  to  organization  among  the  un- 
skilled, as  has  been  exemplified  in  the  recent  Lawrence  strike. 
The  United  Textile  Workers'  Union  of  America,  of  which 
Mr.  John  Golden  is  president,  for  many  years  previous  to  the 
strike,  had  at  Lawrence  an  organization  confined  to  the 
skilled  men  in  the  mills.  It  was  easy  for  the  mill  owners  to 
satisfy  the  demands  of  the  few  skilled  men,  who  were  but 
a  very  small  fraction  of  the  whole  labor  force.  They  were 
willing  to  remain  at  work.  The  demands  of  the  thousands 
of  unskilled  workers,  however,  could  not  be  satisfied  with- 
out a  greater  financial  sacrifice  than  the  mill  owners  were 
prepared  to  make.  The  suspension  of  work  caused  by  the 
strike  of  the  immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe 
and  Asia  Minor  was  an  injury  to  the  members  of  the  United 
Textile  Workers'  Union,  who  had  nothing  to  gain  from  the 
success  of  the  strike.  Viewing  the  controversy  not  from  an 
altruistic,  but  from  a  business  point  of  view,  they  naturally 
sided  with  the  mill  owners  against  the  strikers,  "comforted 
that  the  whirligig  of  time  was  bringing  them  around  as  bul- 
warks of  conservatism  even  in  the  eyes  of  the  employers."1 
This  diversity  of  economic  interests  of  the  aristocracy  of 
skilled  labor  and  of  the  masses  of  unskilled  men,  women,  and 
children  accounts  for  the  fact  that  "the  English-speaking 
labor  men  have  not  been  urged  by  such  a  missionary  zeal 
toward  the  recent  immigrants  as  should  have  been  theirs 
on  human  grounds  no  more  than  on  the  basis  of  sound  associ- 
ation among  the  whole  labor  force."2 


organization;  would  not  make  the  organization  necessary.  A  better 
condition  would  be  one  where  hours ,  conditions  of  employment,  and  wages 
were  such  that  organization  of  labor  for  these  purposes  was  unnecessary," 
— Hearings  before  the  Commission  on  Immigration  and  Naturalization, 
House  of  Representatives,  Sixty-first  Congress,  p.  256. 

1  Robert  A.  Woods:  "The  Clod  Stirs,"  The  Survey,  March  16,  1912, 
pp.  1930-1931.  *Ibid. 


Labor  Organizations  349 

Discussing  the  possibilities  of  organization  among  the 
unskilled,  a  student  of  organized  labor  says: 

The  immigrant  is  usually  accustomed  to  some  form  of  social  organi- 
zation. He  is  not  as  individualistic  as  is  the  typical  American.  He  can 
be  organized  with  others  into  labor  unions;  and  when  the  unskilled 
immigrants  from  a  variety  of  birthplaces  are  thus  associated,  the  result- 
ing union  is  usually  strong,  coherent,  and  easily  directed  by  capable  and 
enthusiastic  leaders.  The  McKees  Rocks  strike  furnishes  an  excellent 
illustration  of  the  solidarity  of  the  unskilled  when  organized. x 

On  the  home  training  of  Italian  immigrants  in  organi- 
zation the  report  of  the  Immigration  Commission  contains 
interesting  material,  which  unfortunately  has  been  disre- 
garded in  its  conclusions. 

In  recent  years  the  labor-union  movement  has  grown  rapidly  and  to 
large  proportions  among  the  industrial  as  well  as  the  agricultural  workers 
of  Italy,  and  it  is  said  that  the  activities  of  the  unions  have  helped  to 
advance  wages  in  both  fields.  In  1907,  according  to  Annuario  Statis- 
tico  for  1905-1907,  there  were  2950  industrial  unions  in  the  Kingdom, 
with  a  total  of  362,533  members.  From  1901  to  1904,  inclusive,  there 
were  3032  industrial  strikes,  involving  621,737  workers,  and  in  the 
various  years  from  63  to  80  per  cent  of  the  strikes  were  reported  as 
"successful"  or  "partly  successful."11 

The  most  noteworthy  feature  of  this  movement  is  the 
progress  of  organization  among  farm  hands,  which  has  no 
counterpart  in  the  United  States.  The  statistics  presented 
in  Table  105  show  that  even  the  despised  South  Italian  farm 
laborer  is  capable  of  organization  and  concerted  action. 

On  the  labor  movement  in  Russia,  a  compilation  of 
statistics  from  Russian  official  sources  has  been  published 
by  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor. 

Previous  to  the  revolution  of  1905,  labor  organizations 
and  strikes  were  treated  as  conspiracies  in  Russia.  During 
the  revolution  the  severity  of  the  law  was  relaxed  for  a 
short  time,  but  with  the  suppression  of  the  revolution  the 
old  repressive  policy  was  resumed.  Thus  the  only  oppor- 

1  Carlton:  loc.  tit.,  pp.  346-347. 

a  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  4  (in  press). 


350 


Immigration  and  Labor 


TABLE  105. 

AGRICULTURAL    LABOR    UNIONS    AND     STRIKES    AMONG    AGRICULTURAL 
LABORERS    IN    ITALY.1 


Geographical 
division 

Local  unions,  1901 

Strikes,  1901  to  1904  inclusive 

Number 

Membership 

Number 

Participants  ' 

Northern  Italy  
The  rest  of  the 
Kingdom  

289 
1014 

49,884 
229,629 

701 

404 

171,911 
315,229 

Total  

1303 

278,513 

iios3 

487,140 

tunity  the  wage-warners  of  the  Russian  Empire  had  to  show 
their  capacity  for  organization  and  concerted  action  was  in 
1905.  According  to  the  statistics  published  by  the  Russian 
government,  the  total  number  of  strikers  in  factories  and 
mines  during  the  year  1905  was  2,915,000.  This  figure  does 
not  include  the  railways  and  the  postal-telegraph  service, 
which  were  completely  paralyzed  by  the  strikes  of  I9O5.3 
According  to  the  census  of  1897,  the  total  number  of 
railroad  employees,  exclusive  of  administrative  officials, 
was  682,000  and  the  total  number  of  employees  in  the 
postal-telegraph  service,  exclusive  of  higher  officials,  was 
75,000. 4  The  total  number  of  strikers  for  the  year  1905 
may  therefore  be  conservatively  estimated  at  3,672,000. 
The  highest  number  of  strikers  recorded  in  the  United 
States  for  any  one  year  between  1881  and  1905  was  533,000, 
in  1 902 . 5  The  strikes  in  the  factories  of  the  Russian  Empire 
in  1905  affected  32.6  per  cent  of  all  establishments  under 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  4,  Table  17  (condensed). 

aOf  the  1105  strikes  among  agricultural  laborers  a  large  majority 
were  reported  as  successful  or  partly  successful. 

3  Bulletin  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor,  No.  86:  I.  M.  Rubinow,  Foreign 
Statistical  Publications,  Russia,  p.  284.  _ 

« Premier  Recensement  Central  de  la  Population  de  I' Empire  de  Russiet 
1897,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  II,  250-251. 

» Statistical  Abstract  of  the  United  States,  1909,  p.  240. 


Labor  Organizations  351 

factory  inspection,  comprising  60  per  cent  of  all  wage- 
earners.  x 

The  strikes  in  the  Russian  Empire  drew  together  wage- 
earners  of  all  those  nationalities  which  make  up  the  bulk 
of  our  immigration  from  Russia :  Hebrews,  Poles,  Lithuan- 
ians, Russians,  and  Ruthenians  (South  Russians). 

It  is  evident  that  a  good  many  of  the  immigrants  from 
Russia,  Poland,  and  Italy  bring  with  them  an  understand- 
ing of  the  aims  of  organized  labor.  These  immigrants  serve 
as  a  nucleus  of  organization  among  their  countrymen.2  This 
fact  has  been  brought  to  the  attention  of  the  American 
public  in  the  recent  strikes  of  the  garment  workers  and 
textile  mill  operatives. 

From  all  available  data  it  is  clear  that  if  organized  labor 
in  the  United  States  has  not  succeeded  in  welding  together 
a  majority  of  the  wage-earners  and  in  securing  for  them  a 
greater  share  of  the  prosperity  of  the  country,  the  fault  is 
not  with  immigration  in  general,  nor  with  immigration  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  in  particular.  Race  pre- 
judice, which  the  coming  of  the  immigrant  has  increased 
among  the  English-speaking  workers  is  considered  by  some 
writers  among  the  contributory  causes  which  have  retarded 
the  development  of  unionism  in  this  country.3  The  pri- 
mary cause,  however,  is  the  substitution  of  machinery  for 
human  skill,  which  is  taking  the  ground  from  the  craft  union. 
Since  the  unskilled  labor  which  has  superseded  the  labor  of 
the  skilled  mechanic  is  performed  by  recent  immigrants,  the 
breakdown  of  the  old  organization  is  conceived  by  the  trade- 
unionist  as  the  effect  of  recent  immigration.  This  view  is 
given  expression  in  the  following  statement : 

In  the  occupations  and  industries  in  which  the  pressure  of  the  com- 
petition of  the  recent  immigrant  has  been  directly  felt,  either  because 

1  Bulletin  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor,  No.  86,  pp.  271-272. 

a  Since  these  lines  were  written  (in  1912)  the  revolution  in  Russia  and 
the  great  strikes  of  1920  in  Italy  have  made  labor  a  dominant  force  in 
the  economic  and  political  life  of  those  countries. 

3  Carlton,  loc.  cit.,  p.  63. 


352  Immigration  and  Labor 

the  nature  of  the  work  was  such  as  to  permit  of  the  immediate  em- 
ployment of  the  immigrant  or  through  the  invention  of  improved 
machinery  his  employment  was  made  possible  in  occupations  which 
formerly  required  training  and  apprenticeship,  the  labor  organizations 
have  been,  in  a  great  many  cases,  completely  overwhelmed  and 
disrupted.1 

Where  the  invention  of  improved  machinery  has  dis- 
pensed with  the  necessity  of  training  and  apprenticeship.it  is 
plain  that  labor  organizations  which  were  built  upon  special 
training  and  apprenticeship  were  doomed  to  die  a  natural 
death  for  want  of  supporters.  Could  a  union  of  blacksmiths 
be  maintained  in  a  modern  foundry  where  steam  hammers 
are  used?  With  the  occupation  of  the  blacksmith  gone,  his 
union  must  inevitably  have  been  "disrupted"  even  in  a 
purely  American  community  without  a  single  immigrant 
from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe. 

Another  obstacle  to  the  progress  of  trade-unionism  is  that 
the  principal  industries  to-day  are  controlled  by  combina- 
tions, which  have  reduced  competition  among  employers 
of  labor  to  a  minimum.  A  trust  can  afford  to  hold  out  in  a 
strike  as  long  as  it  chooses,  since  it  can  shift  its  losses  to  the 
consumers.  The  workmen,  on  the  contrary,  cannot  strike 
without  end.  As  a  result,  "the  unions  have  practically 
disappeared  from  the  trusts,  and  are  disappearing  from  the 
large  corporations."8 

1  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  tit.,  p.  192. 

aProf.  Commons  in  the  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  vol.  xiii., 
(1908),  p.  759. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

PAUPERISM  AND  CRIME 

A.    Introductory 

preceding  review  of  comparative  statistics  and  de- 
1  scriptive  history  of  labor  conditions  in  the  past  and 
present  has  disclosed  no  evidence  in  support  of  the  view  that 
the  economic  interests  of  the  wage-earner  have  suffered  in 
consequence  of  immigration.  But  it  is  claimed  that  the 
evil  effects  of  immigration  show  themselves  in  an  alarming 
increase  of  pauperism  and  crime.  The  statistics  of  depend- 
ency and  delinquency,  however,  give  no  occasion  for  alarm. 
According  to  an  investigation  made  by  the  Bureau  of  Immi- 
gration, the  total  number  of  inmates  of  penal  institutions, 
insane  asylums,  and  almshouses  in  1908  was  610,477, x  which 
included  native  and  naturalized  citizens  and  aliens.  The 
enumeration  of  the  same  classes  by  the  Bureau  of  the 
Census  in  1904  gave  their  number  as  634,877. 2  A  compari- 
son of  these  figures  clearly  shows  that  the  large  immigration 
of  the  five-year  period  1903-1908  was  accompanied  by  an 
actual  decrease  of  pauperism  and  crime. 

Whether  or  not  the  number  of  paupers  in  charitable  insti- 
tutions can  "  serve  as  a  general  index  of  prevailing  distress/' 3 
is  beside  the  question:  the  contention  is  that  pauperism  is 

1  Report  of  the  Commissioner -General  of  Immigration,  1908,  p.  96. 

*  Benevolent  Institutions,   p.    12.      Paupers  in  Almshouses,   p.    6. 
Insane  and  Feeble-minded  in  Hospitals  and  Institutions,  pp.6,  107. 
Prisoners  and  Juvenile  Delinquents,  pp.  14,  228. 

*  Paupers  in  Almhouses,  p.  8. 

353 


354  Immigration  and  Labor 

on  the  increase,  whereas  the  latest  statistics  show  that  the 
millions  of  recent  immigrants  imposed  no  new  burdens  upon 
the  charitable  and  penal  institutions  of  the  country. 

B.    Pauperism 

The  Immigration  Commission,  in  its  conclusions,  notes  a 
decrease  of  pauperism  among  immigrants  of  the  present  day, 
compared  with  the  past. 

The  number  of  those  admitted  who  receive  assistance  from  organized 
charity  in  cities  is  relatively  small.  In  the  Commission's  investigation 
which  covered  the  activities  of  the  associated  charities  in  43  cities,  in- 
cluding practically  all  the  larger  immigrant  centers  except  New  York, 
it  was  found  that  a  small  percentage  of  the  cases  represented  immigrants 
who  had  been  in  the  United  States  three  years  or  under,  while  nearly 
half  of  all  the  foreign-born  cases  were  those  who  had  been  in  the  United 
States  twenty  years  or  more.  This  investigation  was  conducted  during 
the  winter  of  1908-09  before  industrial  activities  had  been  fully  resumed 
following  the  financial  depression  of  1907-8,  and  this  inquiry  showed 
that  the  recent  immigrants,  even  in  cities  in  times  of  relative  industrial 
inactivity,  did  not  seek  charitable  assistance  in  any  considerable 
numbers.1 

The  records  of  the  charitable  institutions  of  New  York 
City  also  show  that  the  recent  immigrant  races  furnish  a 
much  smaller  relative  number  of  applicants  for  charity  than 
the  old  immigrant  races.  Table  106  gives  the  nativity  of 
lodgers  who  were  sheltered  in  the  Municipal  Lodging  House 
in  New  York  City  during  the  first  quarter  of  the  year  1908, 
when  the  crisis  was  in  its  acutest  stage. 

The  immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  fur- 
nished less  than  their  proporti  on  of  homeless  men  even  in 
a  period  of  industrial  depression.  The  population  tables  of  the 
XIII.  Census  for  New  York  City  are  not  as  detailed  as  those 
of  the  XII.  Census.  It  may  be  inferred,  however,  from  the 
published  figures  that  the  ratio  of  pauperism  relative  to 
population  must  have  been  still  more  favorable  to  the  races 
of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  thaif  shown  in  Table  106. 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  p.  36. 


Pauperism  and  Crime 

TABLE  1 06. 


355 


PER  CENT  DISTRIBUTION,  BY  NATIVITY,  OF  LODGERS  AT  MUNICIPAL 
LODGING  HOUSE  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY  DURING  JANUARY,  FEBRUARY, 
AND  MARCH,  1908,  AND  OF  THE  MALE  POPULATION  21  YEARS  OF  AGB 
AND  OVER  AT  THE  XII.  CENSUS.  * 


Nativity 

Lodgers 
1908 

Males  of 
full  age, 
1900 

Total     

IOO.O 

IOO  O 

English-speaking  : 
United  States  

46.2 

4.C   7 

Ireland  

21.  1 

IO.Q 

England,  Scotland,  and  Wales  

6.0 

4.1 

Germany  

Q.5 

15-1 

Scandinavian  

I    7 

2   O 

France  

o  s 

o  6 

Russia  

4.O 

5.8 

Austria  

2.  1 

2.8 

Italy  

1  .4 

6.3 

64 

63 

English-speaking  

74  2 

60.7 

All  others  

'*     m 

2s*.  8 

•JQ.-l 

Native  

46.2 

45.7 

Foreign-born  

™          n 

51.8 

54.  1 

Northern  and  Western  Europe  

•JQ.  7 

12.  Q 

Eastern  and  Southern  Europe.  . 

7  7 

14.0 

Other  countries  

6  4 

.    6.3 

The  increase  of  the  Russian  population  of  New  York 
City  in  1900-1910  was  168  per  cent,  which  raised  it  to  10.3 
per  cent  of  the  total  population  of  the  city;  the  proportion 
of  adult  males  in  a  national  group  comprising  many  recent 
immigrants  must  necessarily  have  increased  at  a  greater 
rate.  The  increase  of  the  Italians  amounted  to  134  per 
cent,  and  that  of  the  Austrians  to  1 10  per  cent.2 

It  might  be  argued  that  the  higher  ratio  of  dependency 

1  Report  of  the  Commission  of  Immigration  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
p.  201.     XII.  Census.     Population,  Part  I.,  Table  83,  pp,  938-945; 
Table  80,  pp.  930-931. 

2  XIII,  Census.    Population,  vol.  i.,  pp.  178^  826-827, 


356 


Immigration  and  Labor 


among  the  Irish  is  the  result  of  their  "displacement  by  the 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans. ' '  It  was  shown,  however, 
by  the  Industrial  Commission  that  in  pauperism  the  Irish 
had  always  been  in  the  lead.  The  demonstration  of  this 
fact  is  given  in  Table  107,  which  shows  that  in  1885-1895, 
when  the  Italians  and  Hebrews  from  Russia  and  Austria 
were  but  a  small  fraction  of  the  population  of  New  York 
City,  and  even  as  far  back  as  1854-1860,  when  there  were 
practically  none  at  all,  the  preponderance  of  the  Irish  among 
the  recipients  of  charity  was  as  great  as  in  more  recent  years. 

TABLE  107. 

PER  CENT  DISTRIBUTION,   BY  NATIVITY,   OF  FOREIGN-BORN  RECIPIENTS 

OF  CHARITY,  1854-1860,  AND  1885-1895,  AND  OF  THE  POPULATION 

OF  NEW  YORK  CITY,  1855  AND  1 890.' 


Country  of  birth 

Popula- 
tion 1855 

Relief 

granted 
1854-1860 

Popula- 
tion 1890 

Alms- 
house 
paupers 
1885-1895 

Total  for  all  nativities  

IOO.O 

IOO.O 

IOO  O 

IOO  O 

Ireland. 

27   O 

60  o 

12  6 

60  4 

England,  Scotland,  and  Wales.  . 
Germany.             

5-1 

IS  2 

4.5 
n>.8 

3-1 
14.  O 

6.6 

14.  O 

Italy  

2.6 

O  7 

Russia  and  Austria-Hungary 
(Hebrews)  

a   O 

O.O 

The  proportion  of  English  and  Irish  paupers  in  Boston  in 
the  '30*8  and  '40*8  was  about  the  same  as  in  New  York  City 
half  a  century  later: 

TABLE  108. 

COMPARATIVE  PERCENTAGE  OF  ENGLISH  AND  IRISH  PAUPERS  IN  BOSTON, 
1837-1845,  AND  IN  NEW  YORK  CITY,  1885-1895.' 


In  Boston 

In  New  York  City 


1837-1840 6l .  7 

1841-1845 59-2 

1885-1895 64.8 


1  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  pp.  460,  480. 
*  Census  of  Boston,  1845,  PP-  no-ill.      Report  of  the   Industrial 
Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  480. 


Pauperism  and  Crime 


357 


It  is  evident  from  the  preceding  figures  that  recent  immi- 
gration is  not  responsible  for  the  high  percentage  of  pauper- 
ism among  the  old  English-speaking  immigrants.  Dr. 
Kate  H.  Claghorn,  after  an  exhaustive  statistical  study  of 
immigration  in  its  relation  to  pauperism,  comes  to  the 
conclusion  that  pauperism  "  is  the  result  of  a  considerable 
period  of  life  and  experiences  here."  It  is  not  the  able- 
bodied  workmen  and  their  families,  but  the  industrial 
invalids  that  make  up  the  lists  of  applicants  for  charity. * 

Unemployment  is  responsible  for  but  a  minority  of  the 
cases  of  pauperism,  as  appears  from  Table  109,  based  upon 
a  classification  of  7225  Charity  Organization  Society  cases 
in  New  York  City: 

TABLE  109. 

PER  CENT   DISTRIBUTION   OF   CHARITY  CASES   IN   NEW  YORK  CITY,    BY 
NATIVITY  AND  CAUSES  OF  NEED  (YEAR).3 


Per  cent  of 

total  for  each 

nationality 

Nativity 

Unem- 
ployment 

Other  mis- 
fortune 

All  other 
causes 

American  

24.  57 

44  27 

•*i  16 

English  

24.68 

4.^  .4-7 

•?i.85 

Irish  

18.87 

47.  -IQ 

a-i.74 

German. 

28   62 

SO  66 

20.  72 

Italian 

<iO  85 

47.66 

21   4Q 

Russian  and  Polish  ... 

°      « 
2-1.87 

61.26 

14.87 

1 "  The  census  of  1890  showed  that  92  per  cent  of  the  foreign-born  male 
almshouse  paupers  had  been  in  this  country  ten  years  or  more.  .  .  Over- 
work, poor  food,  and  life  in  the  airless,  sunless,  and  crowded  tenements 
of  the  city,  or  in  the  equally  crowded  and  even  more  unsanitary  dwell- 
ings of  the  mill  or  the  mining  town — the  conditions  accompanying  the 
early  stages  of  the  immigrant's  progress— tend  strongly  to  break  down 
the  physical  health  of  the  sturdy  Italian  or  Austrian  peasants,  or  even 
of  the  Jews,  more  accustomed  to  the  unsanitary  conditions  of  city  life." 
— Kate  H.  Claghorn :  Immigration  in  its  Relation  to  Pauperism.  Annals 
of  the  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science,  July,  1904,  pp. 
187-200.  3  Ibid.,  p.  199. 


358  Immigration  and  Labor 

C.  Crime 

One  of  the  favorite  arguments  against  immigration  since 
the  days  of  the  Know-Nothings  has  been  the  assertion  that 
"the  foreigner  in  proportion  to  his  numbers  furnishes  by  far 
the  greater  part  of  crime. "  x  In  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century  the  Irish  immigrant  was  the  object  of  popular  odium 
as  Tsi  of  a  potential  criminal.2  Fifty  years  later  the 
suspicion  turned  upon  "the  undesirable  immigrants  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe. ' '  Although  the  latest  statis- 
tics of  prisoners,  published  by  the  Bureau  of  the  Census 
simultaneously  with  the  creation  of  the  Immigration  Com- 
mission, showed  "that  the  popular  belief  that  the  foreign- 
born  are  filling  the  prisons  has  little  foundation  in  fact,"3 
yet  the  Immigration  Commission  approached  the  subject 
under  the  influence  of  the  popular  prejudice.  In  its  report 
on  Emigration  Conditions  in  Europe  the  Commission 
lends  its  support  to  "the  not  unfounded  belief  that  certain 
kinds  of  criminality  are  inherent  in  the  Italian  race." 
Accompanying  this  inherent  criminal  tendency,  in  the  opin- 
ion of  the  Commission,  "is  also  a  seemingly  inherent  ability 
to  avoid  arrest  and  conviction. "  The  evidence  in  support 
of  this  indictment  of  the  whole  Italian  race  is  merely  cir- 
cumstiitial.  There  has  been  a  ' '  remarkable  decrease  in  the 
number  of  murders  and  homicides  in  Italy,"  and,  it  is  alleged, 
there  has  been  a  "startling  growth  of  Italian  criminality  of 
the  same  nature  in  the  United  States. "  Although  it  "  obvi- 
ously cannot  be  mathematically  determined"  .  .  .  "to what 
extent  emigration  is  responsible  for  the  decrease  of  crime  in 

1  Sydney  G.  Fisher:  "  Immigration  and  Crime,"  Popular  Science 
Monthly,  September,  1896,  p.  625. 

a  "  The  newspapers  and  pamphlets  of  that  time  published  statistics 
which  showed  that,  although  the  foreign  population  was  only  an  eighth 
of  the  whole,  yet  it  furnished  .  .  .  1000  more  criminals  than  all  the  re- 
maining seven  eighths  of  the  people.  .  .  - — Every  one-hundred  and  fifty- 
four  of  them  produced  a  criminal." — Ibidr-  These  early  statistics  were 
discredited  by  later  criticism.  Cf.  Roland  P.  Falkner:  Statistics  of 
Crime  in  United  States.  » Prisoners,  1904,  p.  41. 


Pauperism  and  Crime  359 

Italy,"  yet  "in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  decrease  has  been 
coincident  with  the  emigration  movement,  and  also  with 
the"  supposed  "growth  of  Italian  criminality  in  the  United 
States,  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  these 
...  results  .  .  .  had  been  due  in  large  part  to  the  emigra- 
tion to  this  country  of  criminals  and  the  criminallyinclined." 
The  Commission  concedes  that  "there  are  of  course  other 
elements  which  should  be  taken  into  consideration,  such  as 
the  advance  of  civilization  and  the  better  enforcement  of 
law  in  parts  of  Italy, "  but  these  considerations  are  of  little 
weight.  To  be  sure,  according  to  Italian  statistics  of  crime, 
"Sicily,  which  has  a  large  emigration,  and  Liguria,  which  has 
much  the  smallest  emigration  in  proportion  to  population, 
show  nearly  the  same  per  cent  of  decrease,"  in  murders  and 
homicides.  But  these  facts  are  of  no  consequence.  The 
homicidal  tendency  of  the  Italian  immigrant  is  proved,  on 
the  one  hand,  by  the  fact  that  in  certain  provinces  which 
"furnish  the  greatest  number  of  transoceanic  emigrants 
according  to  the  population,  there  has  been  an  exceptionally 
large  decrease  in  the  number  of  murders  and  homicides  com- 
mitted," and,  on  the  other  hand,  by  the  fact,  "that  the 
prevalence  of  murder  and  homicide  is  as  a  rule  much  greater 
in  Compartimenti  which  furnish  the  largest  number  of  trans- 
oceanic emigrants,  and  consequently  are  the  source  of  the 
greater  part  of  the  Italian  movement  to  the  United  States." x 

This  criminological  theory  is  significant  in  so  far  only  as 
it  betrays  the  bias  of  the  Commission  against  the  immigrant. 
Yet,  notwithstanding  its  strong  prejudice,  which  no  evidence 
could  overcome,  the  results  of  its  investigation  prove  to  the 
satisfaction  of  its  own  interpreters,  that,  "undue  significance 
has  been  attached"  to  the  supposed  effects  of  immigration 
upon  criminality. 

"The  number  of  .  .  .  criminals  arriving  .  .  .  taken  as  a 
percentage  of  the  whole  coming  is  so  small  that  little  heed 
need  be  paid  to  it. " 

"Although  available  statistical  material  is  too  small  to 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  4,  pp.  204,  205,  209. 


360  Immigration  and  Labor 

draw  positive  conclusions,  such  material  as  is  available 
would  indicate  that  immigrants  are  no  more  inclined  toward 
criminality  on  the  whole  than  are  native  Americans." 

"It  is  impossible  to  produce  satisfactory  evidence  that 
immigration  has  resulted  in  an  increase  of  crime  out  of  pro- 
portion to  the  increase  in  the  adult  population."1 

The  State  of  New  York,  which  is  more  affected  by  immi- 
gration than  any  other  State  in  the  Union,  has  compiled 
annual  statistics  of  crime  commencing  with  the  year  1830. 
The  results  of  an  analysis  of  these  statistics,  by  the  writer, 
are  briefly  summed  up  in  the  following  paragraphs. 2 

Surveying  the  general  trend  for  the  seventy-five  year 
period  1830-1905,  we  find  that  the  increase  of  crime  has 
merely  kept  pace  with  the  growth  of  population.  The 
relative  rate  of  criminality  in  1890  was  the  same  as  in  1840, 
notwithstanding  the  change  in  the  racial  composition  of  the 
population  of  the  State.  In  the  year  1900  there  was  just 
one  more  conviction  for  every  100,000  of  the  population  than 
in  1890,  and  in  1905  four  convictions  per  100,000  people  in 
excess  of  1900.  The  fluctuations  of  the  movement  of  popu- 
lation and  of  the  rate  of  criminality  indicate  that  the  causes 
which  are  favorable  to  the  growth  of  population  tend  to 
reduce  crime,  and  vice  versa,  the  causes  which  retard  the 
growth  of  population  are  productive  of  an  increase  of  crime. 

The  effects  of  immigration  upon  criminality  can  be  traced 
from  1850  when  the  census  inquiries  for  the  first  time  took 
notice  of  nativity.  The  statistics  for  the  half-century 
following  show  that  an  increase  of  the  percentage  of  the  for- 
eign-born population  is  accompanied  by  a  decrease  of  crim- 
inality, and  vice  versa.  During  the  latest  ten-year  period, 
1900-1909,  the  wave  of  criminality  rose  when  immigration 
was  at  its  lowest  ebb,  while  the  high-tide  of  immigration  was 
contemporaneous  with  a  decrease  of  crime. 

1  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  «/.,  pp.  51,  52,  65. 

a  For  a  detailed  statistical  analysis  of  -the  data  upon  which  these 
conclusions  are  based,  the  reader  is  referred  to  an  article  by  the 
present  writer  on  "Immigration  and  Crime,"  in  The  American  Journal 
of  Sociology,  January,  1912. 


Pauperism  and  Crime  361 

Thus  it  is  found  that  in  the  social  profit-and-loss  account, 
crime  and  immigration  figure  on  the  opposite  sides  of  the 
ledger.  Immigration  does  not  impair  the  worker's  oppor- 
tunities to  earn  a  living;  on  the  contrary  increase  of  immi- 
gration goes  parallel  with  increase  of  business  prosperity 
and  decrease  of  crime. 


PART  IIL 

IMMIGRANTS  IN  THE  LEADING  INDUSTRIES 

[The  Immigration  Commission  has  devoted  several  volumes  of  its 
report  to  a  description  of  labor  conditions  in  special  industries  which 
are  generally  believed  to  typify  the  evils  of  recent  immigration.  Of 
these,  five  will  be  considered  in  this  part.] 

CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  GARMENT  WORKERS 

THE  manufacture  of  clothing  in  the  United  States  is  an 
immigrant  industry.  Immigrants  have  furnished 
the  labor  and  in  most  instances  the  capital.1  The  labor 
conditions  in  this  industry  have  attracted  wide  public 
attention  by  frequent  strikes,  ever  since  the  Russian  Jews 
have  become  thepredominant  element  among  the  operatives. 
The  clothing  industry  has  become  associated  in  the  public 
mind  with  the  sweating  system,  and  since  the  employees  are, 
with  few  exceptions,  immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe,  the  conclusion  is  readily  reached  that  the  root  of 
the  sweating  system  is  in  the  character  of  the  new  immigra- 
tion. This  view  draws  support  from  the  attitude  of  the 
United  Garment  Workers  of  America,  an  organization  of 
Jewish  garment  workers,  which,  at  its  annual  convention 
in  1905,  adopted  a  resolution  demanding  restriction  of 
further  immigration  for  the  protection  of  the  foreign-born 
workers  already  here.2  And  yet  a  dispassionate  study  of 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Committee,  vol.  1 1,  p.  417. 
1  John  R.  Commons,  Races  and  Immigrants  in  America,  p.  115. 

362 


The  Garment  Workers  363 

the  clothing  industry  shows  that  labor  conditions  have  very 
substantially  improved  with  the  coming  of  the  "new 
immigration. " 

The  sweating  system  did  not  originate  with  the  Jewish 
clothing  workers:  it  preceded  them  by  more  than  half  a 
century.  In  the  Report  of  Woman  and  Child  Wage- 
Earners  in  the  United  States,  recently  published  by  the 
United  States  Bureau  of  Labor,  we  find  a  vast  amount  of 
information  on  the  employment  of  women  in  the  clothing 
industry  in  the  first  third  of  the  nineteenth  century,  at  the 
time  when  the  wage-earners  were  nearly  all  American-born. 

The  history  of  this  period,  like  that  of  the  better-known  period  of  the 
machine,  is  a  tale  of  long  hours,  low  wages,  and  exploitation.  The 
"sweating  system,"  indeed,  in  the  broad  sense  of  that  term,  was  es- 
tablished in  this  country  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  ready-made 
garment  business  and  has  developed  simultaneously  with  that  business. 
The  contract  system  established  stages  and  degrees  of  sweating,  but  a 
study  of  the  sweating  system  would  have  to  extend  back  at  least  as 
far  as  the  beginning,  in  1828,  of  Matthew  Carey's  agitation  in  the  in- 
terests of  ...  the  working  women,  of  whom  he  estimated  that  there 
were  in  Philadelphia,  New  York,  Boston,  and  Baltimore  between  18,000 
and  20,000.  .  .  .  The  disclosures  made  by  Matthew  Carey  during 
the  course  of  his  investigation  and  agitation  in  behalf  of  the  sewing 
women  seem,  though  quaintly  worded,  very  modern  in  their  substance. 
It  was  set  forth,  for  example,  in  the  resolutions  passed  at  a  meeting  in 
Philadelphia  on  February  21,  1829,  that  "it  requires  great  expertness, 
unceasing  industry  from  sunrise  till  10  or  n  o'clock  at  night,  constant 
employment  (which  very  few  of  them  have)  without  any  interruption 
whatever  from  sickness,  or  attention  to  their  families,  to  earn  a  dollar 
and  a  half  a  week,  and,  in  many  cases,  a  half  or  a  third  of  their  time  is 
expended  in  attending  their  children,  and  no  small  portion  in  traveling 
eight,  ten  or  fourteen  squares  for  work,  and  as  many  to  take  it  back 
when  finished."  .  .  .  The  committee  appointed  at  this  meeting  re- 
ported: "That  .  .  .  the  wages  paid  to  seamstresses  who  work  in  their 
own  apartments — to  spoolers,  to  spinners,  to  folders  of  printed  books — 
and  in  many  cases  to  those  who  take  in  washing,  are  utterly  inadequate 
to  their  support,  even  if  fully  employed  .  .  .  whereas  the  work  is  so  pre- 
carious that  they  are  often  unemployed — sometimes  for  a  whole  week 
together,  and  very  frequently  one  or  two  days  in  each  week."1 

1  Helen  L.  Sumner:    "History  of  Women  in  Industries  of  the  United 


364  Immigration  and  Labor 

In  Boston  (in  1830)  the  average  weekly  wages  of  a  woman  garment 
worker,  when  fully  employed,  were  given  by  a  contemporary  writer  as 
but  a  dollar  or  a  dollar  and  a  quarter,  while  the  common  rent  of  a  room 
was  a  dollar  a  week.1 

In  other  words,  the  weekly  wages  of  a  Boston  working 
woman  were  barely  sufficient  to  provide  for  rent.  While 
fully  employed,  she  was  not  self-supporting,  but  had  to 
depend  upon  her  family  for  the  necessities  of  life. 

In  Baltimore,  too,  in  1833,  the  wages  of  sewing  women  were  declared 
not  sufficient  for  the  genteel  support  of  the  single  individual  who 
performs  the  work,  although  she  may  use  every  effort  of  industry  which 
her  constitution  is  capable  of  sustaining.3 

Instances  of  the  sweating  system  are  again  recorded  in 
1844,  still  before  the  first  inrush  of  Irish  immigration.  It 
was  reported 

that  a  man  and  two  women  working  together  from  twelve  to  sixteen 
hours  a  day  earned  a  dollar  amongst  them,  and  that  the  women,  if 
they  did  not  belong  to  the  family,  received  each  about  $1.25  a  week  for 
their  work,  the  man  paying  out  of  the  remaining  $3.50  about  $1.00  a 
week  for  rent  of  his  garret.  * 

From  1850,  the  Irish  workers  became  predominant  in  the 
clothing  industry.  At  that  period  the  clothing  industry  in 
New  York  City  was  in  its  infancy.  There  were  no  factories, 
and  the  workers  occupied  small  rooms  or  sweatshops.4 

In  1853  the  investigation  of  the  clothing  trade  made  by  the  New 
York  Tribune  disclosed  the  existence  of  a  "middle  system."  For 
example,  near  one  of  the  streets  running  from  the  Bowery  to  the  East 
River  an  old  Irish  woman  was  found  who  had  four  girls  at  work  for 
her,  their  compensation  consisting  solely  of  food  for  six  days  of  the  week. 
In  another  case  a  woman  had  hired  four  "learners,"  two  of  whom  re- 
ceived only  board  and  lodging,  and  the  other  two  $1.00  a  week  each 
without  food.* 

States."  Report  of  Woman  and  Child  Wage-Eat  ners  in  the  United  States, 
vol.  ix.,  pp.  123-124.  •  Ibid.,  p.  125.  *  Ibid.,  p.  126. 

}  Ibid.,  p.  141. 

<  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  II,  p.  369. 

5Sumner,/oc.  cit.,  pp.  141-142. 


The  Garment  Workers  365 

According  to  the  Immigration  Commission,  the  "displace- 
ment of  the  old  races  by  the  new,  or  recent,  immigrants" 
has  been  "one  resulting  through  the  willingness  of  the 
'raw*  immigrants  to  accept  lower  wages  than  those  who 
have  been  in  this  country  for  a  longer  period  of  time.  "x 
Yet  when  the  earnings  of  the  "raw"  immigrant  women  of 
the  present  day  are  compared  with  those  of  the  "  old  races, " 
it  is  found  that  the  native  American  and  the  Irish  working 
women  of  past  generations  were  "willing"  to  work  only  for 
board  and  lodging,  or  even  for  board  alone,  depending 
upon  their  families  for  other  necessities,  whereas  the  Jewish 
factory  girls  are  at  least  self-supporting.  The  question  is 
not  whether  wages  to-day  are  all  that  could  be  desired,  but 
whether  they  have  been  reduced  by  recent  immigration, 
and  Dr.  Sumner's  historical  research  proves  the  contrary. 
One  of  the  chief  factors  which  kept  down  the  wages  of 
working  women  in  the  early  history  of  the  clothing  industry 
was  country  competition. 

"  We  know  instances,"  said  the  New  York  Morning  News,  in  1845, 
"  where  shirtwaist  makers  put  their  work  out  in  the  country  in  the 
winter  at  II  cents  each.  The  work  is  done  by  those  who  do  not  make 
it  a  means  of  living,  but  use  it  merely  as  an  auxiliary  to  dress."  The 
Voice  of  Industry  too,  stated  in  1845  that  "a  gentleman  told  us,  the  other 
day,  that  he  saw  the  daughter  of  a  respectable  farmer  making  shirts  at 
II  cents  apiece,  for  one  of  the  dealers.  He  asked  her  whether  she 
thought  it  a  sufficient  price.  "No,'  said  she,  '  if  I  were  obliged  to 
support  myself,  I  could  not  do  it  by  this  work;  but  I  merely  employ 
my  time  which  otherwise  I  should  not  use. ' " 

In  the  same  year  the  chairwoman  of  a  meeting  of  working  women 
in  New  York  said  that  she  knew  several  employers  who  paid  only  from 
IO  to  18  cents  per  day,  and  that  one  employer,  who  offered  girls  20 
cents  per  day,  told  them  that  if  they  did  not  take  it  "he  would  obtain 
girls  from  Connecticut  who  would  work  for  less  even  than  what  he 
offered." 

By  1850,  the  cheap  labor  of  the  farmhouse  is  said  to  have  been  em- 
ployed "  in  the  getting  up  of  clothing,  skirts,  stocks,  hosiery,  suspen- 
ders, carriage  trappings,  buttons,  and  a  hundred  other  light  things."8 

x  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  11.,  p.  369. 
*  Stunner,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  140-141. 


366  Immigration  and  Labor 

These  conditions  have  changed  as  the  direct  result  of 
immigration.  The  rapid  growth  of  the  t^age- working 
population  created  a  market  for  ready-made  clothing. 

These  new  branches  of  work,  whereby  a  product,  which  when  for- 
merly made  by  the  custom  tailor,  the  dressmaker,  or  the  housewife  cost 
higher  prices  than  most  of  the  people  could  afford,  is  now  made  in  the 
latest  styles,  enable  all  classes  of  people  to  be  better  dressed  and  to 
spend  much  more  money  every  year  for  clothing.  Herein  the  immigrant 
*  has  created  his  own  employment. x 

The  expansion  of  the  clothing  industry  was  made  possible 
by  the  introduction  of  the  factory  system  with  its  greater 
efficiency  than  home  work.  The  operation  of  a  factory 
requires  a  regular  force  of  employees  whose  livelihood  must 
be  provided  for  by  their  wages.  This  is  the  reason  why  the 
immigrant  girl  from  Southern  or  Eastern  Europe  cannot 
accept  the  low  wages  which  the  daughters  of  native  Ameri- 
can farmers  regarded  as  satisfactory.  A  development 
peculiar  to  the  factory  method  of  clothing  manufacturing 
was  the  substitution  of  male  for  female  labor,  with  a 
consequent  increase  of  the  rate  of  wages. 

The  view  that  the  new  immigrants  tend  to  lower  the 
wages  of  the  ql^er  immigrants  apparently  finds  support  in 
the  statistics  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  which  show 
for  each  race  at  present  employed  in  the  clothing  industry 
"a  general  increase  in  weekly  darnings  with  the  increased 
period  of  residence.  "2  In  other  words,  the  earnings  of  the 

(recent  immigrants  are  lower  than  those  of  the  older  immi- 
grants, because,  it  is  explained,  "the  immigrants  of  long 
residence  have  acquired  a  higher  standard  of  living  and 
consequently  demand  a  higher  wage."3  Quite  naturally 
then,  "the  older  employees  are  unable  to  meet  the  competi- 
tion of  the  recent  immigrants,  whose  demands  are  not 
great. "« 

The  reasoning  sounds  plausible,  still  it  will  not  stand  close 
1  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  xxvii. 
*  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  n,  p.  380. 
>  Ibid.,  p.  370.  4  Ibid. 


The  Garment  Workers  367 

scrutiny.  Indeed,  if  the  fact  that  the  older  immigrants 
"demand  a  higher  wage"  be  sufficient  to  secure  to  them  an 
actual  increase  in  weekly  earnings,  then  there  is  nothing 
to  prevent  them  from  demanding  and  securing  a  higher 
wage,  notwithstanding  the  competition  of  the  recent  immi- 
grants. If,  on  the  contrary,  the  older  employees  are  unable 
to  meet  the  competition  of  the  recent  immigrants,  then  the 
increased  period  of  residence  could  not  help  them  to  a 
"general  increase  in  weekly  earnings."  The  fallacy  of  the 
Commission's  reasoning  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  mistakes 
cause  for  effect:  higher  earnings  are  not  the  effect,  but  the 
cause,  of  a  higher  standard  of  living.  Wages  in  the  labor 
market  are  not  determined  by  the  amount  the  worker 
desires  to  spend,  but  by  the  services  he  is  able  to  render.  It 
is  plain  that  competition  would  not  permit  the  clothing 
manufacturer  to  pay  higher  wages  to  an  older  employee 
merely  as  a  reward  for  long  residence,  if  recent  immigrants 
could  be  hired  to  do  the  same  work  more  cheaply.  If  the 
older  employees  are  able  to  command,  not  merely  to  "de- 
mand, "  a  higher  wage,  it  is  evidently  because  their  services 
are  worth  more  than  the  "inexperienced  labor"  of  the 
newcomers.  And  it  is  equally  evident  that  th!e  immigrants 
who  "must  have  work  on  landing  in  New  York,  and  .  .  . 
find  their  way  to  the  clothing  manufactories,"1  do  not 
compete  with  the  older  employees  for  the  higher  positions 
requiring  experience. 

But  it  is  said  that  the  new  immigrants  "annually  crowd 
the  shops  of  the  city  (of  New  York)  in  thousands,  forcing 
workers  who  have  preceded  them  to  move  up  in  the  scale 
of  occupation  or  to  enter  other  employment.  .  .  .  Some 
of  the  displaced  workers  have  opened  tailoring  or  repair 
shops  of  their  own,  others  have  gone  into  the  shops  of 
custom  tailors,  and  many  have  entered  other  lines  of  work."* 
In  every-day  language,  the  opening  of  a  shop  by  a  former 
wage- worker  is  not  called  "displacement,"  but  advance- 

*  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  1 1,  p.  370. 
*Ibid. 


368  Immigration  and  Labor 

ment.  Custom  tailoring  requires  a  higher  grade  of  skill 
than  the  manufacturing  of  ready-made  clothing.  If  a 
clothing  worker  vacates  his  place  in  the  factory  to  accept 
a  better  position  with  a  custom  tailor  and  the  vacancy  is 
filled  by  a  new  immigrant,  no  one  in  the  trade  will  conceive 
the  change  as  "displacement"  of  the  older  employee  by  a 
new  hand.  There  remain  only  the  undefined  "other  lines 
of  work,"  into  which  the  incoming  thousands  are  said  to 
have  crowded  those  of  their  predecessors  whom  they  could 
not  "force"  to  move  up.  A  sidelight  upon  this  residue 
is  thrown  by  the  narrative  of  the  history  of  the  clothing 
industry  in  Baltimore.  The  first  people  employed  in  the 
clothing  shops  of  that  city  were 

the  Germans,  who  entered  the  country  in  large  numbers  immediately 
after  the  Civil  War.  Since  that  time  the  Russian  Hebrews,  Lithuan- 
ians, Poles,  Italians,  and  Bohemians  have  settled  in  the  city  and  found 
employment  in  the  clothing  shops,  displacing  the  Germans  in  the 
unskilled  occupations,  and  forcing  them  up  into  higher  work.  It  is  also 
noticed  that,  as  the  Russian  Hebrews  and  Poles  work  up  into  the 
skilled  occupations,  the  Germans  leave  the  industry  and  enter  new 
fields.  This  displacement  seems  to  be  self-displacement,  as  there  is  work 
for  all — more  work  than  there  are  laborers — but  the  Germans  are  pro- 
gressive, and  as  the  new  races  have  engaged  in  the  clothing  industry  they 
have  risen  in  the  scale  of  occupations,  and  in  many  instances  have  left 
the  industry  and  found  employment  in  other  skilled  trades.1 

Thus  we  learn  that,  at  least  in  Baltimore,  those  who  have 
left  the  industry  have  "found  employment  in  other  skilled 
trades,"  and  that  the  "displacement"  is  therefore  "self- 
displacement";  in  other  words,  no  displacement  at  all. 
Expressed  in  more  exact  language,  the  report  of  the  Com- 
mission Shows  +V»o+  *V  ^k>thJT1£  industry  of  Pfl]tJTnnrfi  has 
gsosm  jrnore  rapidly  than  thft  supply  nf  Uhnr.  The  ex- 
pansion of  the  industry  created  new  positions  for  skilled 
workers;  these  positions  were  filled  first  by  Germans,  next 
by  Russian  Hebrews  and  Poles.  This  expansion  not  being 
confined  to  the  manufacturing  of  clothing,  other  indus- 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  11,  p.  411. 


The  Garment  Workers 


369 


tries  offered  opportunities  of  which  the  Germans  availed 
themselves. 

It  is  reasonable  to  assume  that  if  there  is  "more  work  than 
there  are  laborers"  in  Baltimore,  the  clothing  manufacturers 
of  that  city  would  have  sufficient  enterprise  to  import 
some  of  the  thousands  who  "crowd  the  shops"  of  New  York 
City.  The  fact  is  that  the  expansion  of  the  clothing  indus- 
try in  New  York  has  been  a  great  deal  faster  than  in  Balti- 
more, as  appears  from  Table  no  below.  It  is  therefore 
quite  probable  that  the  relation  between  the  demand  for, 
and  supply  of,  labor  in  the  shops  of  New  York  is  the  same 
as  in  Baltimore. 

TABLE  no. 

COMPARATIVE  GROWTH  OF  THE  VALUE  OF  THE  PRODUCTS  OF  THB 
CLOTHING  INDUSTRY  IN  NEW  YORK  AND  BALTIMORE,  1 890-1905. x 


City 

i 

Millions  of  dollars 

Per  cent  of  increase 

1890 

1900 

1905 

1890-1900 

1900-1905 

1890-1905 

New  York.  .  .  , 
Baltimore  

1 
119 

so 

206 
20 

306 
23 

73 
25 

49 
IS 

157 

44 

The  statistics  of  the  Immigration  Commission  do  not  dis-f 
close  any  tendency  on  the  part  of  the  new  immigrant  racesV 
to  accept  lower  wages  than  the  immigrants  of  older  races.  \ 
(See  Table  in  on  page  370.)     The  percentage  of  recent 
German  immigrants  earning  $15  a  week  or  over  is  much 
less  than  the  percentage  of  Hebrews  and  Russians  and  about 
the  same  as  the  percentage  of  Italians  with  the  same  aver- 
age earnings.     On  the  opposite  end,  the  percentage  of 
Germans  earning  less  than  $10  a  week  within  the  first 
five  years  of  their  residence  in  the  United  States  is  some- 
what greater  than  that  of  Hebrews,  Russians,  Poles,  and 

1  Census  Reports,  Manufactures,    1905,  Part  I,  Table   CLXVIII., 
p.  ccxxxiii. 


370 


Immigration  and  Labor 


Bohemians.    These  figures  show  that  the  "new  immi- 
gration" does  not  underbid  the  immigrants  of  the  older 
races.    On  the  other  hand,  the  variation  in  the  earnings  of 
representatives  of  each  race  indicates  that  the  rate  of  wages 
r  is.  not  determined  by  racial  factors,  but  depends   upon 
?  the  personal  qualifications  and  opportunities  of  individual 
\workers. 

TABLE  in. 

PER    CENT    DISTRIBUTION    OF    FOREIGN-BORN    ADULT    MALE    CLOTHING 

WORKERS,  1 8  YEARS  OF  AGE   AND    OVER,    RESIDING   IN  THE  UNITED 

STATES  LESS  THAN  FIVE  YEARS,  BY  RACE  AND  WEEKLY  EARNINGS .  T 


Race 

Under  Jio 

$10  to  £15 

$15  and  over 

Hebrew  (not  Russian)  
Hebrew  (Russian)  

33-9 

-in.  I 

42.2 

-JQ.Q 

23-9 
21  .O 

75.  -I 

46.8 

17.9 

4O.2 

10.8% 

IO.O 

Italian  North  

4.C   -i 

45.  -i 

0.4 

4.O.O 

to  -o 
SI  .4  9 

8.6 

Italian,  South  

S7.6*> 

-la.o 

8.5 

Polish        

•»'       f 

VI  4 

54.  l3. 

8.5 

Bohemian  and  Moravian. 

35-5 

ot   *•<* 
57  -0\ 

7-5 

The  Immigration  Commission  speaks  in  general  terms  of 
the  "availability  of  cheap  woman  and  child  labor  of  the 
immigrant  households"  for  locating  "men's  and  women's 
clothing  manufacturing  establishments"  in  certain  districts 
"developed  in  connection  with  some  of  the  principal  indus- 
tries of  the  country." *  But  the  statistics  of  the  Commission 
show  that  the  earnings  of  recent  immigrant  women  and 
children  in  the  clothing  industry  are  higher  than  those  of 
(  native  Americans.  Thus,  adult  Russian  Hebrew  women 
averaged  $8.09  per  week,  Polish  women,  $8.07,  North  Italian 
women,  $7.54,  whereas  native  women  of  native  American 
parentage  earned  only  $7.41  per  week.  The  majority  of 
Polish  women  (55.4  per  cent)  earned  more  than  $7.50  per 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  1 1,  p.  301,  Table  35. 
vol.  i,  p.  541. 


The  Garment  Workers  371 

week,  while  the  majority  of  American  women  of  native 
parentage  (57.2  per  cent)  earned  less  than  that  amount.1 
The  same  is  true  of  girls  between  the  ages  of  14  and  18. 
Russian  Hebrew  girls  earned  on  an  average  $6.13  per  week, 
other  Hebrew  girls  $6.24,  South  Italian  girls  $5.56,  Polish 
girls  $5.25,  whereas  native  American  girls  of  native  parent- 
age made  only  $5.02  per  week.  Nearly  one  half  (45.9  per 
cent)  of  the  latter  earned  less  than  $5  while  only  a  little 
over  one  fourth  (27.4  per  cent)  .of  the  Russian  Hebrew 
girls  earned  less  than  that  amount.2 

Confronted  with  these  facts,  Professors  Jenks  and  Lauck_ 
seek  to  explain  them  by  the  assumption  that  "the  lower 
earnings  of  the  American  women"  are  due  "to  their  in- 
ability and  disinclination  to  work  such  long  hours  as  the  v 
foreign-born  females  in  the  case  of  certain  piece-rate  occu- 
pations, as,  for  example,  the  clothing  industry.1'3  This 
explanation,  however,  is  purely  a  matter  of  conjecture* 
since  the  Immigration  Commission  has  made  no  inquiries 
regarding  hours  of  labor  in  the  clothing  industry.  As 
shown  above,  the  hours  were  long  in  the  factories  and  sweat- 
shops when  the  women  workers  were  all  Americans,  and 
were  reduced  with  the  coming  of  immigrants.  The  inquiry 
of  the  Industrial  Commission  concerning  the  hours  of  labor 
in  the  clothing  industry  in  Pennsylvania  brought  out  the  fact 
that  the  working  hours  averaged  ten  per  day  alike  in  the  city 
shops  where  the  employees  were  Jews  and  Italians,  and  in 
country  shops,  where  none  but  Americans  were  employed.4 

The  investigations  of  the  Industrial  Commission  also 
disclosed  the  fact  that  in  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth 
century,  as  half  a  century  before,  the  American  country    ^ 
workers  were  willing  to  work  for  lower  wages  than  the 
immigrants  in  the  cities. 

In  the  country  districts  of  Pennsylvania  the  garment  workers  are 
Americans,  some  of  whom  can  be  further  distinguished  as  "Pennsyl- 

1  Reports  of  ihe  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  n,  p.  293,  Table  26. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  298,  Table  32.  *  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.,  p.  143. 
«  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  725. 


372  Immigration  and  Labor 

vania  Dutch."  In  New  Jersey  they  are  Americans  and  German- 
Americans  ...  but  there  is  no  evidence  of  a  lower  standard  of  living 
than  among  their  American  neighbors.  In  spite  of  this,  it  is  these  people 
and  their  American  co-workers  who  are  accepting  a  lower  rate  of  wages  than 
the  Jews  in  the  city. ' 

The  most  striking  difference  between  the  country  and  town  shops  is 
that  the  operators  in  the  town  shops  are  invariably  men  and  in  the 
country  shops  they  are  women.  .  .  .  The  women  coat  operators  in 
the  country  who  get  the  highest  wages  paid  women  receive  $5.34,  and 
the  city  women  basters  on  vests  are  receiving  $6.59.  Here  we  find  women 
in  the  city  engaged  in  a  lower  class  of  work  and  receiving  higher  pay  than 
the  women  in  the  country  who  are  doing  the  highest  grade  of  work.3 

The  same  difference  existed  between  the  wages  of  men  in 
city  and  country  shops:  Jewish  pressers  in  the  city  averaged 
$11.38  per  week,  whereas  American  pressers  in  the  country 
earned  only  $7.62  per  week.3 

Because  the  native  American  country  workers  were 
willing  to  accept  lower  wages  than  the  recent  immigrants 
in  the  cities,  the  contractors  found  it  profitable  to  give  more 
steady  employment  to  country  than  to  city  workers.  While 
the  latter  averaged  but  twenty-eight  working  weeks  in  the 
year,  the  former  were  given  forty-four  weeks,  with  the  result 
that  their  annual  earnings  at  lower  rates  of  wages  exceeded 
the  earnings  of  city  workers  at  higher  rates.4 

What  enables  the  American  country  workers  of  Pennsyl- 
vania to  underbid  the  Jewish  garment  workers  of  Philadel- 
phia is  the  fact  that 

the  country  home  workers  are  usually  simply  supplementing  other 
earnings.  They  are  farmers'  wives  and  daughters  and  those  of  farm 
laborers.  They  make  clothing  in  the  intervals  of  housework  and  farm 
work,  for  most  of  them  help  in  the  haying  and  harvesting.  .  .  .  Where 
the  shop  replaces  the  farming-out  system,  the  employees  are  drawn 
from  these  same  farmers'  families,  and  a  low  standard  of  wages,  in- 
fluenced by  the  home  earnings,  prevails  throughout.' 

Another — no  less  important — cause  of  the  "low  standard 
of  wages"  of  native  American  country  workers  is  their 

1  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  730. 

a  Ibid.,  pp.  727-729-  3  Ibid.,  p.  726. 

« Ibid.,  p.  725.  $  Ibid.,  pp.  727-728. 


The  Garment  Workers  373 


V 


isolation,  in  consequence  of  which  "they  must  accept  his 
[the  contractor's]  rate  of  payment  offered  through  the 
driver  who  delivers  the  goods. "  *  The  Southern  and  East- 
ern European  clothing  workers  in  the  cities,  on  the  contrary, 
are  comparatively  well  organized.  As  shown  in  Chapter 
XV  the  percentage  of  organized  workers  among  them  is 
above  the  average  for  the  country.  Their  capacity  for 
concerted  action  finds  full  expression  only  in  strikes  which 
rally  around  the  unions  many  workers  not  regularly  affiliated 
with  them.  The  highest  per  cent  of  employees  joining  in 
strikes  in  1887-1905  was  found  among  clothing  workers,  as 
shown  in  Table  112: 

TABLE  112. 

PER  CENT  OF  STRIKING  EMPLOYEES  IN  THE  CLOTHING  INDUSTRY  AND  IN 
ALL  INDUSTRIES  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES,  1887-1905.* 


Industry 

Male 

Female 

Women's  clothing  

86.04. 

62.  II 

81.84 

4V  06 

All  industries  

44.  qi 

28.  IS 

The  strikes  were,  as  a  rule,  led  by  organizations.  Of  the 
20,559  establishments  involved  in  strikes  during  the  twenty- 
five  year  period  from  1881  to  1905,  in  only  355  were  the 
strikes  not  ordered  by  labor  organizations,  the  annual 
averages  being  835  and  13  establishments,  respectively. 
The  proportion  of  unorganized  strikes  among  workers  on 
men's  clothing  was  10  per  cent;  among  workers  on  women's 
clothing  1 6  per  cent,  whereas  the  average  for  all  industries 
was  31  percent.3 

The  percentage  of  thoroughly  successful  strikes  of  clothing 
workers  for  the  period  1881-1905  was  much  above  the  average, 
viz. :  the  percentage  in  establishments  manufacturing  men's 

1  Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  728. 

a  Twenty- first  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  pp.  90-91. 

*Ibid.,  pp.  35-36. 


374  Immigration  and  Labor 

clothing,  75.51,  and  in  establishments  manufacturing 
women 's  clothing  66.37,  whereas  the  average  for  all  indus- 
tries in  the  United  States  was  only  47.94.'  These  figures 
will  enable  the  student  to  appraise  at  its  true  value  the 
conclusion  of  the  Immigration  Commission  that  "as  a  gen- 
eral proposition  it  may  be  said  that  all  improvement  in 
conditions  and  increases  in  rates  of  pay  have  been  secured 
in  spite  of  the  presence  of  the  recent  immigrant."2 

The  strike  statistics  published  by  the  United  States 
Bureau  of  Labor  permit  of  a  comparison  between  the  recent 
period  beginning  with  the  fiscal  year  1895,  when  the  immi- 
grants from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  for  the  first 
time  outnumbered  all  others,  and  the  earlier  period  from 
January  i,  1881,  to  June  30,  1894.  During  the  8o's  the 
principal  nationalities  employed  in  the  clothing  shops  were 
the  Germans  and  the  Irish:3  since  1895  the  Jews  and  the 
Italians  have  become  the  predominating  element  among  the 
workers.  It  appears  that  during  the  thirteen  and  a  half 
years  previous  to  the  fiscal  year  1895  the  average  annual 
number  of  strikers  in  the  clothing  industry  was  9,094, 
and  during  the  eleven  and  a  half  years  following  it  rose  to 
38,683.'  • 

This  is  the  unbiased  testimony  of  figures  in  answer  to 
the  sweeping  generalizations  of  the  Immigration  Commis- 
sion about  the  reluctance  of  the  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europeans  "to  enter  labor  disputes  involving  loss  of  time," 
their  "ready  acceptance  of  a  low  wage  and  existing  working 
conditions"  and  "willingness  seemingly  to  accept  in- 
definitely without  protest  certain  wages  and  conditions 
of  employment."5 

1  Twenty-first  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  pp.  81-82. 
*  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I ,  p.  540. 
*Ibid.,  vol.  i,  pp.  516-517. 

« Computed  from  Annual  Reports  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor: 
X.,  p.  1567;  XVI.,  pp.  15,  34,  355;  XXL,  p.  16. 

»  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission^  vol.  i,  pp.  530-540. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE   COTTON  MILLS 

THE  cotton  mills  furnish  a  good  field  for  the  study  of 
the  effects  of  immigration  upon  the  condition  of 
labor  in  the  United  States.  According  to  the  investiga- 
tion of  the  Immigration  Commission,  68.7  per  cent  of  the 
operatives  in  the  New  England  States  were  of  foreign  birth. 
The  races  of  the  "old  immigration"  were  represented  by 
37.8  percent,  and  those  of  the  "new  immigration"  by  30.9 
per  cent.1  The  latter  are  mostly  recent  arrivals.  In  1900 
the  proportion  of  immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe  and  their  American-born  children  varied  from 
3.1  per  cent  in  New  Hampshire  to  13.2  per  cent  in  Massa- 
chusetts.3 

The  Immigration  Commission  has  obtained  from  one  of 
the  largest  and  oldest  mill  corporations  figures  showing 
the  movement  of  wages  since  1875.3  The  movement  may 
be  divided  into  two  periods:  (i)  from  1875  to  1898  and  (2) 
from  1899  to  1908.  The  first  period,  when  the  cotton-mill 
operatives  were  practically  all  English-speaking,  was  one 
of  intermittent  advances  and  reductions;  on  the  whole 
wages  remained  stationary.  The  second  period,  which  is 
marked  by  the  advent  of  the  Southern  and  Eastern  Euro- 
peans into  the  cotton  mills,  is  conspicuous  by  an  unin- 
terrupted upward  movement  of  wages,  which  was  checked 
only  by  the  crisis  of  1908.  Still,  even  after  the  reduction 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  10,  Table  7,  pp.  14-15. 
•Ibid.,  Table  19,  p.  36.  3  2bid.t  p.  291. 

375 


376  Immigration  and  Labor 

made  on  March  30,  1908,  wages  remained  15  per  cent 
above  the  level  of  1898.  To  be  sure,  the  first  period  was 
one  of  falling  prices,  which  enabled  the  cotton-mill  opera- 
tives to  maintain  their  usual  standard  of  living  notwith- 
standing the '  reductions  in  wages,  whereas,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  second  period  was  one  of  rapidly  rising  prices 
which  offset  the  increase  in  wages.  It  is  therefore  possible 
that  the  operatives  were  not  better  off  during  the  later 
period  of  rising  wages  than  during  the  earlier  period.  Still, 
assuming  that  every  cut  in  wages  merely  restored  the 
previous  relation  between  earnings  and  the  cost  of  living, 
it  is  plain  that  these  reductions  must  have  caused  dissatis- 
faction among  the  wage-earners.  However,  the  operatives 
of  the  New  England  cotton  mills,  all  of  them  of  Teutonic 
and  Celtic  stock,  acquiesced  in  these  reductions.  On  the 
other  hand,  though  the  advances  in  1899-1907  may  have 
been  nullified  by  the  rising  cost  of  living,  each  increase  in 
wages  was  nevertheless  the  outcome  of  successful  bargaining 
by  the  operatives  for  better  terms  of  employment. 

Still  the  question  is  whether  the  industrial  expansion  of 
the  period  from  1899  to  1907  might  not  have  enabled  the 
operatives  to  win  more  substantial  advances  had  there  been 
no  immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  The 
only  method  by  which  such  results  could  have  been  accom- 
plished was  organization. 

The  more  recent  immigrant  employees  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe  and  Asia,  however,  [says  the  Immigration  Commission  in  its 
summary  volume],  have  been  a  constant  menace  to  the  labor  organi- 
zations, and  have  been  directly  and  indirectly  instrumental  in  weakening 
the  unions  and  threatening  their  disruption.  The  divergence  in  lan- 
guage and  the  high  degree  of  illiteracy  and  ignorance  among  the  recent 
operatives  have  made  their  work  of  organization  among  them  very 
difficult  and  expensive.1 

This  conclusion  is  at  variance  with  the  facts  recited 
in  the  special  report  of  the  Commission  on  "  Cotton 
goods  manufacturing  in  the  North  Atlantic  States": 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  p.  537. 


The  Cotton  Mills  377 

"Fall  River,  Mass.,  is  the  only  distinctly  trade-union 
locality  in  New  England,"  yet  there,  as  elsewhere,  the 
unions  are  confined  to  the  skilled  occupations,  whereas  the 
recent  immigrants  upon  entering  the  cotton  mills  "take 
up  unskilled  work.  .  .  .  Many  of  them  never  advance 
beyond  the  unskilled  work.  These  occupations  are  not 
organized,  and  the  coming  of  the  foreigner  there  does  not 
concern  the  textile  unions."*  In  Cohoes,  N.  Y.,  likewise, 
"  the  unions  manifest  little  interest  in  the  immigrant  employees 
until  they  have  advanced  to  the  occupations  controlled  by  the 
labor  organizations."2  It  is  evident  that  "their  work  of 
organization"  among  the  unskilled  immigrants  could  have 
been  neither  "difficult"  nor  "expensive." 

With  regard  to  skilled  occupations  the  Immigration 
Commission  has  reached  two  diametrically  opposite  con- 
clusions. In  the  abstract  of  the  reports  on  immigrants  in 
manufacturing  and  mining  it  maintains  that 

the  advancement  in  large  numbers  of  the  Southern  and  Eastern  Euro- 
peans to  weaving,  spinning,  beaming,  and  similar  occupations  has  tended 
to  bring  them  into  more  direct  competition  with  the  Americans  and  older 
immigrant  employees,  and  to  destroy  the  advantage  which  the  latter 
class,  who  control  and  direct  the  unions,  formerly  possessed.  * 

In  the  special  report  on  cotton  goods  manufacturing  the 
Commission  says,  on  the  contrary,  that 

at  no  time  has  there  been  a  sharp  competition  between  unionized  laborers 
on  the  one  hand,  and  unorganized  immigrant  laborers  in  large  numbers  on 
the  other. « 

The  latter  conclusion  is  supported  by  the  following 
statements : 

The  textile  occupations  themselves,  which  are  unionized,  are  protected, 
by  the  long  time  required  to  attain  proficiency,  from  any  sudden  or 
immediate  competition  of  unorganized  foreigners.  .  .  .  Automatic 
or  improved  machinery  might  change  this  situation,  and  the  coming  of 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  10,  pp.  123,  124. 
.    *  Ibid.,  p,  123.       *  Ibid.,  vol.  I,  p.  538.         *  Ibid.,  vol.  10,  p.  124. 


378  Immigration  and  Labor 

the  immigrant  might  then  be  a  more  serious  matter  for  the  unions  and 
might  subject  them  to  a  disastrous  competition  from  unorganized  workers 
accustomed  to  a  lower  standard  of  living,  .  .  .  but  that  is  not  the  condition 
at  present.  ...  As  regards  the  attitude  of  the  immigrants  toward  the 
unions,  when  they  advance  to  the  skilled,  organized  occupations,  even 
if  they  do  not  join  the  unions,  they  do  not  oppose  the  organization  or  cut 
under  the  unions1  wages.  ...  At  the  time  of  strikes  the  recent  immi- 
grants come  into  the  unions  in  large  numbers.  ...  In  times  of  strikes 
these  foreigners  have  stood  by  the  unions,  even  though  previously  they 
may  not  have  been  members.1 
The  recent  immigrants  have  not  been  used  as  strike-breakers.* 

The  only  specific  strike  described  in  the  report  of  the 
Commission  took  place  in  Lowell,  Mass.,3  in  1903.  It  is 
characterized  as  "the  only  serious  controversy  between  the 
cotton  manufacturers  and  the  operatives"  of  that  city. 
The  history  of  that  controversy  is  briefly  as  follows.  The 
mill  owners  having  refused  an  increase  in  wages,  the  unions 
declared  a  strike.  The  mill  owners  on  the  same  day  re- 
sponded by  a  lockout.  While  the  mills  remained  closed, 
pro-union  meetings  were  held  among  the  Greeks,  the  Poles, 
and  the  Portuguese,  and  organizations  were  formed  among 
them.  "At  the  commencement  of  the  agitation  for  a  ten 
per  cent  increase  in  wages,  the  membership  of  the  unions 
constituted  but  a  small  fraction  of  the  employees  in  the 
mills;  gradually,  however,  this  membership  increased  as  the 
strike  sentiment  grew.*'  The  unions  were  defeated,  how- 
ever, by  an  unexpected  turn  in  the  cotton  market. 

The  price  of  raw  cotton  began  to  rise  to  such  an  extent  that  the  manu- 
facturers who  had  provided  themselves  with  the  necessary  supply  in 
advance  were  able  to  sell  at  a  considerable  profit.  One  mill  actually 
declared  a  4  per  cent  dividend,  on  the  basis  of  raw  cotton  sold  at  a  good 
advance,  due  to  the  high  prices  during  the  strike.  In  this  way  it  would 
have  been  possible  for  them  to  minimize,  or  even  neutralize  entirely 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  10,  pp.  124, 125. 

'Ibid.,  vol.  i,  p.  538. 

»  For  some  unknown  reasons,  the  name-of  the  city  is  hidden  under  the 
designation  of  "Community  A."  The  disguise  is  betrayed,  however, 
in  Table  125  on  p.  232,  which  is  a  reproduction  of  Table  24  on  p.  45, 
where  Lowell,  Mass.,  is  named. 


The  Cotton  Mills  379 

the  loss  occasioned  by  the  idleness  of  their  plants  caused  by  the  strike. 
It  thus  became  a  matter  of  indifference  to  them  whether  work  was 
resumed  or  not.  When  this  situation  generally  became  known  the 
strike  was  doomed.1 

After  a  suspension  of  work  lasting  nine  weeks  the  manu- 
facturers reopened  the  mills.  From  one  third ,  to  two  thirds 
of  the  locked-out  operatives  returned  to  the  mills  on  the 
first  day.  The  ranks  of  the  strikers  began  to  weaken,  and 
after  staying  out  for  three  weeks  the  unions  unanimously 
voted  to  call  the  strike  off. a 

To  form  a  fair  judgment  of  the  endurance  shown  by  the 
Lowell  strikers,  the  length  of  time  they  stayed  out  must  be 
compared  with  the  average  duration  of  strikes  in  the  cotton 
mills  of  Massachusetts.  The  races  of  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe  in  1909  supplied  34  per  cent  of  the  total  number  of 
operatives  in  the  Lowell  cotton  mills. 3  In  the  State  at 
large  the  proportion  of  immigrants  from  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europe  and  Asia  among  the  mill  operatives  of  the 
State  varied  as  follows : 

TABLE  113. 

PERCENTAGE   OF   IMMIGRANTS   FROM    SOUTHERN   AND   EASTERN   EUROPE 
AMONG  THE  TEXTILE  MILL  OPERATIVES  OF  MASSACHUSETTS,  l88O- 

IQOO.* 


Mills 

,  "       Year 

Per  cent 

Cotton  (immigrants  and  their  children).  .  .  . 
Textile  (immigrants  only)  

1900 
1890 
1880 

13-2 
2-3 
05 

The  average  duration  of  strikes  in  the  cotton  mills  of 
Massachusetts  for  the  twenty-year  period  from  1881  to 
1900  was  only  thirty-six  days.5  Thus  the  length  of  time 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  voL  I,  pp.  292,  293. 

1  Ibid.  J  Ibid.,  Table  130,  p.  237. 

« Ibid.,  Tables  14,  17,  and  19. 

*  Sixteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  Table  3,  p.  216. 


380  Immigration  and  Labor 

the  Lowell  strikers  stayed  out  in  1903  was  three  quarters 
in  excess  of  the  average  for  the  period  when  nearly  all  the 
operatives  were  of  the  English-speaking  races.  Going 
over  the  annals  of  the  strikes  in  the  cotton  mills  of  Massa- 
chusetts from  1881-1890,  when  there  were  scarcely  any 
immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  and  Asia 
among  the  operatives,  we  find  only  one  strike  that  can 
compare  in  extent  with  the  Lowell  strike  of  1903;  it  was  in 
1889,  when  9000  weavers  in  thirty-four  mills  at  Fall  River 
struck  for  a  10  per  cent  increase  in  wages.  After  staying 
out  only  seventeen  days  they  returned  to  work  on  the  old 
terms. x 

Thus  when  the  Greek,  Portuguese,  and  Polish  strikers 
in  1903  surrendered  after  nine  weeks  of  idleness,  during 
which  they  received  no  aid  from  the  unions,  they  gave 
an  exhibition  in  endurance  and  adherence  to  a  common 
purpose,  that  was  far  above  the  average  for  any  race  of 
cotton-mill  operatives.  Moreover,  since  the  proportion  of 
the  strikers  who  returned  to  the  mills  on  the  first  day  varied 
from  one  third  to  two  thirds,  whereas  the  proportion  of 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  among  the  operatives 
was  less  than  one  third,2  it  is  evident  that  a  good  many  of 
the  English-speaking  operatives  must  have  surrendered 
simultaneously  with  the  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans. 

The  history  of  this  strike  is  prefaced  by  the  Commission 
with  the  following  remark: 

//  is  not  thought  that  the  presence  of  immigrants  in  such  large  numbers 
in  Community  A  has  exerted  a  decisive  influence  upon  the  success  of  trade- 
unionism  in  the  community.  The  weakness  of  the  unions  in  Community 
A  is  to  be  traced  to  less  general  causes  of  a  local  character. » 

The  reader  is  at  a  loss  to  reconcile  this  conclusion,  and 
the  facts  leading  up  to  it,  with  the  general  statement, 

1  Tenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  vol.  I,  Table  I, 
pp.  364-414- 

a  In  1909  the  proportion  was  34  per  cent,  but  in  1900  only  13.2  per  cent; 
the  proportion  in  1903  must  have  been  somewhere  between  these  two 
figures.  3  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  10,  p.  291. 


The  Cotton  Mills  381 

quoted  above  from  the  abstract  of  the  reports  on  immigrants 
in  manufacturing  and  mining,  to  the  effect  that  "the  more 
recent  immigrant  employees  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe  and  Asia  .  .  .  have  been  a  constant  menace  to  the 
labor  organizations,  and  have  been  directly  and  indirectly 
instrumental  in  weakening  the  unions  and  threatening 
their  disruption."1 
Considering  : 

(1)  That  the  unskilled  operatives  have  at  no  time  been 
organized ; 

(2)  That  the  recent  immigrants  seldom  advance  to  the 
skilled  crafts ; 

(3)  That  when  they  do  advance  to  skilled  occupations 
they  either  join  the  unions  of  their  crafts  or  stand  by  the 
unions  though  not  affiliated  with  them; 

(4)  That  with  the  machinery  heretofore  in  use  there 
has  been  no  room  for  competition  between  organized 
skilled  operatives  and  unorganized  immigrant  unskilled 
la  borers ; 

(5)  That  in  past  strikes  the  recent  immigrants  have  stood 
by  the  strikers  and  have  never  acted  as  strike-breakers: — 

It  is  evident  that  the  presence  of  recent  immigrants  has 
been  no  hindrance  to  union  activity.  The  failure  of  the 
unions  to  secure  better  terms  from  the  mill  corporations 
than  they  did  must  therefore  be  due  to  other  causes  than 
immigration. 

The  real  cause  of  low  wages  in  the  cotton  mills  of  New 
England  is  the  competition  of  the  Southern  cotton  mills. 
The  subject  is  only  hinted  at  in  the  report  of  the  Immigra- 
tion Commission.  No  immigrants  being  employed  in  the 
Southern  mills,  the  latter  were  apparently  considered 
beyond  the  scope  of  the  Commission's  investigation.  A 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  i.,  p.  537.  Unfortu- 
nately, the  full  report  on  cotton  manufacturing  has  been  printed  only 
as  a  Senate  document  and  is  accessible  to  a  very  limited  number  of 
readers,  whereas  the  misleading  conclusions  of  the  abstract  on  immi- 
gration in  manufacturing  and  mining  have  received  wide  circulation 
through  the  free  mailing  list  of  the  Commission. 


382  Immigration  and  Labor 

thorough  discussion  of  the  subject  is  found  in  the  report  of 
the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  for  1906. 

Comparing  labor  conditions  in  New  England  and  South- 
ern mills,  the  Massachusetts  report  says,  by  inference, 
that  when  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  farmers  of  the 
surrounding  country  were  replaced  in  the  Northern  mills 
by  foreigners,  strikes  and  lockouts  followed,  and  the  doors 
were  opened  to  the  trade  unions,  with  the  result  that  hours 
of  labor  were  reduced,  wages  were  increased,  and  child 
labor  was  restricted.1  The  development  of  the  cotton 
manufacturing  industry  in  the  South,  with  its  natural 
advantages  and  "cheap  labor,"  has  made  successful 
competition  impossible  for  Massachusetts  mills,  unless 
Massachusetts  will  "retrograde  and  increase  its  hours  of 
labor,  reduce  its  wages,  and  employ  its  children  to  meet  the 
South  in  a  battle  on  its  own  ground.  "a 

The '  'cheap  labor"  of  the  Southern  cotton  mills  is  the  labor 
of  the  native  white  of  native  stock,  who  constitute  99  per 
cent  of  all  cotton-mill  operatives  in  North  Carolina,  97  per 
cent  in  Georgia  and  Alabama. 3  The  average  yearly  earnings 
of  the  Southern  operatives  compared  as  follows  with  those  of 
the  New  England  operatives,  many  of  whom  were  Southern 
and  Eastern  European,  Armenian,  and  Syrian  immigrants : 

1  "When  the  native  stock  is  all  employed,  the  South  must  look  to  the 
immigrant,  and  then  will  come  the  test  of  her  ability  to  withstand  the 
enactment  of  just  labor  laws.  She  will  be  compelled  to  readjust  her 
hours  of  labor,  increase  her  wages,  discharge  her  child  labor,  and  open 
her  doors  to  the  trade  union.  She  will  go  through  the  same  experience 
as  the  North.  The  North's  first  operatives  were  the  sons  and  daughters 
of  the  native  farmers  round  about,  but  the  grandchildren  would  not 
follow  in  their  parents'  footsteps,  preferring  to  go  into  other  business. 
This  the  South  is  finding  to  be  the  case  with  the  children  they  are 
attempting  to  educate,  and  foreigners  must  soon  be  taken  to  replace 
them.  Then  will  come  a  repetition  of  the  experience  of  the  Northern 
mills.  Strikes  and  lockouts  will  follow."  Thirty- Sixth  Annual  Report 
Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor  (1906),  Part  II:  Cotton 
Manufactures  in  Massachusetts  and  the  Southern  States,  p.  102. 

» Ibid.,  p.  1 06. 

» Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  Table  41  (computed). 


The  Cotton  Mills 


383 


TABLE  114. 

AVERAGE  YEARLY  EARNINGS  OF  COTTON-MILL  OPERATIVES,  BY  SEX  AND 
AGE  IN  THE  PRINCIPAL  STATES,  1904. x 


State 

Men 

Women 

Children  under 
I  6  years 

New  Hampshire  

$4.18 

$•7-17 

$188 

Massachusetts  .  .       ... 

4.IO 

74.0 

27-1 

Rhode  Island  

4.00 

•2-14. 

222 

Connecticut  

•5Q2 

7.2  c 

2IO 

New  York  

•JQ4. 

'MO 

1  88 

524. 

714. 

IQ-l 

Norfh  Carolina 

2^6 

IQ4, 

T  7.0 

South  Carolina  ...  . 

24.4, 

IQO 

*o" 
1  18 

Georgia  .  . 

28l 

TOO 

126 

Alabama  .  . 

272 

2OS 

T7O 

As  can  be  seen  from  the  preceding  table  the  average 
earnings  of  adult  men  in  South  Carolina  are  only  slightly 
above  the  average  earnings  of  children  in  Massachusetts; 
the  highest  average  earnings  of  adult  men  in  the  Southern 
mills  are  much  below  the  average  earnings  of  women 
employed  in  the  Northern  mills.  This  is  a  reversal  of  the 
usual  relation  between  men's  and  women's  wages.  It  is  this 
competition  of  the  cheap  American  labor  of  the  Southern 
mills  that  keeps  down  the  wages  of  the  Southern  and  East- 
ern European,  Armenian,  and  Syrian  immigrants  employed 
in  the  cotton  mills  of  the  North. 

1  Census  of  Manufactures,  1905,  vol.  i.,  Table  5,  p.  188. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  WOOLEN  MILLS 

THE  recent  strike  in  the  woolen  mills  of  Lawrence  has 
forcibly  drawn  public  attention  to  the  condition  of 
labor  in  the  woolen  industry.  It  developed  in  the  hearings 
held  before  the  Committee  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
and  through  investigations  made  by  leading  magazine 
writers  and  social  workers,  that  m  this  Industry^  protected 
from  foreign  competition  by  the  tariff  and  from  domestic 
competition  by  a  high  degree  of  centralization,  the  wages  of 
married  men  were  insufficient  for  the  support  of  their 
families.  The  fact  that  the  strikers  were  mostly  recent 
immigrants  diverted  the  discussion  from  the  issues  of  the 
strike  to  the  subject  of  immigration.  It  was  readily  be- 
lieved that  they  had  been  " imported"  because  of  their 
low  standard  of  living,  for  the  express  purpose  of  reducing 
the  wages  of  native  American  and  other  English-speaking 
operatives.  Professor  Lauck,  author  of  the  report  of  the 
Immigration  Commission  on  "Immigrants  in  Industries," 
writing  in  the  North  American  Review  on  the  Lawrence 
strike,  claimed  that 

the  American  mill  hand  .  .  .  because  of  his  inability  to  work  under 
the  same  conditions  and  at  the  same  wages  as  the  recent  immigrant,  has 
been  forced  to  leave  the  woolen-goods  manufacturing  industry.1 

It  has  been  taken  as  a  self-evident  truth  that  the  wages  of 
the  recent  immigrants  were  low  because  they  lived  in  con- 

'W.  Jett  Lauck:    "The  Lesson  from  Lawrence,"  North  American 
Review,  May,  1912,  p.  664. 

384 


The  Woolen  Mills  385 

gested  quarters,  and  because  they  were  underfed  and  poorly 
clad.  There  has  accordingly  been  little  disposition  among 
people  usually  friendly  to  labor  to  waste  sympathy  upon 
men  and  women  who  were  "willing"  to  deny  themselves 
the  barest  necessities  of  life  for  the  mere  privilege  of  work- 
ing in  the  mills.  "The  lesson  from  Lawrence"  is  to  these 
good  people  that  the  solution  of  the  labor  problem  is  in 
keeping  out  the  foreign  laborer.  As  usual  in  all  arguments 
inspired  by  this  theory,  no  regard  is  paid  to  historical 
perspective. 

The  American  operative  was  not  "forced  to  leave  the 
woolen-goods  manufacturing  industry"  by  the  coming  of 
the  recent  immigrants,  because  he  had  left  it  long  before. 
According  to  the  census  of  1880,  there  were  among  the 
10,395  operatives  of  the  cotton  and  woolen  mills  of  Law- 
rence only  41 1 1  native  Americans,  i.  e.,  only  40  per  cent,  in- 
cluding persons  of  native  and  of  foreign  parentage.  The 
majority  were  immigrants  from  Ireland,  Great  Britain,  and 
Canada,  with  a  sprinkling  of  Germans  (4  per  cent).1  The 
immigrants  from  all  other  countries  numbered  I  per  cent 
of  all  operatives.  Thus,  if  the  prevalence  of  immigrants 
among  the  operatives  be  the  result  of  the  "forcing  out" 
of  native  Americans,  it  is  clear  that  they  were  forced  out  by 
English-speaking  immigrants. 

Even  as  recently  as  1900  the  immigrants  from  Italy, 
Russia,  Poland,  and  Austria-Hungary  and  their  American- 
born  children,  employed  in  the  woolen  and  worsted  mills  of 
Lawrence,  numbered  only  721  persons  of  both  sexes,  i.  e., 
10  per  cent  of  all  operatives,  whereas  the  total  number  of 
native  Americans  of  native  parentage  did  not  exceed 
374,  i.  e.,  5.2  per  cent  of  the  total  force.2  If  it  be  true  that 
all  but  this  little  remnant  of  American  operatives  had  been 
"forced  out"  of  the  mills,  is  there  any  reason  to  attribute 
their  ousting  to  the  pressure  of  the  10  per  cent  made  up  of 
"recent  immigrants"  rather  than  to  that  of  the  85  per  cent 

*  Population,  X.  Census,  Table  XXXVI.,  p.  882. 
1  Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census  Table  43. 


386 


Immigration  and  Labor 


representing  the  English-speaking  immigrants  and  their 
native-born  children?  Suppose  the  10  per  cent  contingent 
of  recent  immigrants  forced  out  as  many  Americans,  there 
were  still  90  per  cent  of  the  places  in  the  mills  to  be  filled, 
and  the  contest  for  these  places  was  between  native  Ameri- 
cans of  native  parentage  and  English-speaking  immigrants 
and  their  children.  Detailed  figures  are  given  in  Table  1 15. 

TABLE  115. 

DISTRIBUTION  OF  THE  OPERATIVES  OF  BOTH  SEXES  IN  THE  WOOLEN  AND 

WORSTED  MILLS  OF  LAWRENCE,  MASSACHUSETTS,  BY  PARENT 

NATIVITY,  1900.* 


Nativity 

Number 

Percent 

Total        

7I8O 

IOO.O 

Native  parentage  

374 

5.2 

6806 

Q4.8 

Native  born  

2005 

27.O 

4801 

66.  Q 

Country  of  birth  of  parents: 
Canada  (English)  

182 

2.6 

Canada  (French)  

673 

0.4 

Great  Britain  

1^61 

18.9 

Ireland  

2078 

28.9 

Germany  

872 

12.2 

7 

.O 

Austria-Hungary  

45 

.6 

Italy  

402 

5.6 

Poland  

no 

1.0 

Russia  

144 

2.O 

Other  countries  and  mixed  parentage.  . 

911 

12.7 

It  is  only  since  the  federal  census  of  1900  that  the  immi- 
grants from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  and  Syria  have 
become  a  conspicuous  element  among  the  woolen-mill 
operatives  of  Lawrence.  The  report  of  the  Immigration 
Commission  contains  figures  which  "are  practically  a 
census  of  the  local  establishments  "  for  1909.  According  to 
those  figures,  35.5  per  cent  of  the  operatives  were  immigrants 

1  Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  Table  43. 


The  Woolen  Mills 


387 


from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  and  Turkey.  But  the 
proportion  of  native  Americans  of  native  parentage  was 
6.9  per  cent,  as  against  5.2  per  cent  in  1900.  Since  the 
advent  of  the  "new  immigrants"  the  number  of  native  Ameri- 
cans of  native  parentage  employed  in  the  woolen  and  worsted 
mills  of  Lawrence  has  more  than  doubled.  The  proof  of  this 
fact  is  given  in  Table  116  next  following: 

TABLE  116. 

NUMBER  OF   NATIVE  AMERICANS   OF   NATIVE  PARENTAGE  EMPLOYED  IN 
THE  WOOLEN  AND  WORSTED  MILLS  OF  LAWRENCE,  IQOO  AND  1909. x 


1900 

1909 

Per  cent 
increase 
1900-1909 

Sex 

Woolen 
mill 
operatives 

Worsted  mill 
operatives 

Textile  mill 
operatives 
not  otherwise 
specified.3 

Total 

Male  
Female..  . 

Total. 

142 
147 

33 

52 

45 
63 

22O 
262 

690 

545 

213 

108 

289 

85 

108 

482 

1235 

156 

The  only  inference  justified  by  the  figures  of  the  Immigra- 
tion Commission  is  that  the  same  economic  conditions 
which  have  brought  the  recent  immigrants  to  the  Lawrence 
woolen  mills  have  also  induced  increasing  numbers  of  native 
Americans  of  native  stock  to  accept  employment  in  the 
same  mills.  In  1909,  the  average  number  of  wage-earners 
in  the  woolen  mills  was  20,203,  as  against  an  average 
number  of  12,216  employed  in  igo4.3  These  figures  are 

1  Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  Table  43.      Report  of  the  Immigra- 
tion Commission,  vol.  10,  Table  81,  p.  742.     The  same  figures  are  dupli- 
cated in  Table  85,  p.  752. 

2  As  some  of  these  operatives  may  have  been  employed  in  woolen 
and  worsted  mills,  their  total  number  is  included  in  this  comparative 
table.    The  percentage  of  increase  is  thereby  reduced  below  the  actual 
figure. 

*  XIIL  Census,  vol.  ix:  Manufacturers,  p.  527. 


388  Immigration  and  Labor 

indicative  of  a  great  expansion  of  the  industry  in  recent 
years,  which  has  created  new  places  both  for  native  Ameri- 
cans and  for  new  immigrants. 

What  has  been  the  effect  of  this  expansion  upon  the 
rates  of  wages?  Professor  Lauck,  speaking  for  the  Immi- 
gration Commission,  holds  that  "the  rate  of  wages  in  the 
presence  of  a  large  supply  of  immigrant  laborers  tends  to 
decline."1  This  obiter  dictum,  however,  is  unsupported  by 
figures.  The  statistics  of  wages  quoted  further  in  the  report 
decidedly  contradict  the  opinion  of  their  compiler.  In  the 
thirteen  occupations  selected  by  him  for  comparison,  "  these 
figures  indicate  an  apparent  increase  of  19.65  per  cent  in  the 
rate  of  weekly  wages  .  .  .  during  the  past  twenty  years." 
In  another  mill  the  average  earnings  of  weavers  show  "an 
increase  of  75  per  cent."3  If  there  be  such  a  tendency  as 
that  enunciated  by  Professor  Lauck,  its  operation  has 
apparently  been  suspended  at  Lawrence  during  the  past 
twenty  years. 

The  statistics  of  the  Immigration  Commission  furnish 
material  for  a  comparison  of  the  variation  in  the  rates  of 
wages  in  the  presence  and  in  the  absence  of  the  recent 
immigrant  labor  supply,  viz.,  from  1889  to  1899  and  from 
1899  to  1909.  In  1890  the  population  of  Lawrence  num- 
bered in  all  159  immigrants  fr^m  Austria,  Portugal,  Italy, 
Russia,  and  Turkey.3  By  1900,  as  stated,  their  number 
in  the  woolen  mills  reached  only  8.6  per  cent  of  all  opera- 
tives. Their  presence  in  the  mills  was  certainly  a  negligible 
factor  in  determining  the  rates  of  wages.  In  the  ten  years 
following,  however,  their  numbers  increased  to  35.5  per 
cent  of  the  total  force.  As  elsewhere,  they  have  taken  over 
"the  simpler,  cruder  processes, "  while  the  English-speaking 
operatives  have  been  assigned  to  the  higher  grades  of  work. 4 
It  is  therefore,  possible  to  observe  the  effect  of  recent  immi- 
gration upon  the  rates  of  wages  for  unskilled  labor,  as  well 
as  the  effect  of  the  absence  of  ther  competition  of  recent 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  10,  p.  773. 

•  Ibid.,  pp.  773,  774.  i  Ibid.,  p.  750.  4  ibid.,  p.  772, 


The  Woolen  Mills 


389 


immigrants  upon  the  rates  of  wages  in  those  occupations 
to  which  they  are  not  admitted.  The  comparative  rates 
of  increase  in  the  wage  scales  are  presented  in  Table  117. 

TABLE  117. 

PER  CENT  INCREASE  IN  THE  RATES  OF  WAGES  PAID  BY  ONE  OF  THE 

TWO  LARGEST  WORSTED  MILLS  IN  LAWRENCE  TO  SKILLED  AND 

UNSKILLED  OPERATIVES,  IN  1889-1899,  AND  1899-1909.* 


Occupation 

Per  week 

Per  hour 

1889-1899 

1899-1909 

1889-1899 

1899-1909 

Skilled: 
Loom  fixers  .  .      .  . 

0.0 

4.7 

0.0 

16.7 

5-3 

0.0 

o.o 
o.o 

0.0 

16.4 
23.3 
5.9 

31.2 

j    8.3) 
ji8.o[ 

134-3) 

12.  1 

5-5 
28.9 

16.8 

0.0 
0.0 
0.0 

16.7 
5.3 

0.0 

o.o 
o.o 
o.o 

20.5 

0.0 

9.5 

35-  7  x 
25.0 

I35'0? 
(40.0) 

16.0 

10.  0 

33-4 

20.8 

Wool  sorters     

Warp  dressers  

Unskilled: 
Doffers  

Spinners             .    . 

Comb  minders  

Drawing  girls: 
Highest  grade  
Lowest  grade 

Dyehouse  hands  

The  preceding  table  demonstrates : 

(1)  That  from  1889  to  1899,  the  rates  of  wages  of  the 
skilled   operatives   remained   stationary,    and   that   they 
increased  from  1899  to  1909,  i.  e.,  during  the  period  of  the 
great  influx  of  immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe  and  Turkey; 

(2)  That  in  three  of  the  unskilled  occupations  the  rates 
of  wages  remained  stationary  in  1889-1899,  in  the  absence 
of  "the  new  immigration,'*  and  increased  in  1899-1909,  in 
the  presence  of  that  immigration ;  that  the  wages  of  spinners 
were  raised  during  the  earlier  period  5.3  per  cent  and  during 

1  The  percentages  have  been  computed  from  the  rates  per  week  and 
per  hour  quoted  in  the  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  10, 
p.  774.  Occupations  for  which  two  or  more  rates  were  given  in  1899 
and  only  one  in  1889  and  1909  have  been  omitted. 


390  Immigration  and  Labor 

the  recent  period  from  8.3  to  34.3  per  cent;  that  the 
wages  of  doffers  increased  during  the  first  period  16.7  per 
cent  and  during  the  second, 3 1.2  per  cent; 

(3)  That  since  the  immigrants  from  Southern  and  East- 
ern Europe  and  Asiatic  Turkey  have  begun  to  enter  the 
unskilled  occupations  in  large  numbers,  the  percentage  of 
increase  in  the  wages  of  unskilled  operatives  has  been  greater 
than  the  percentage  of  increase  in  the  rates  of  skilled  workers, 
who  are  practically  all  of  the  English-speaking  races. 

If  the  rates  of  wages  are  affected  by  the  racial  charac- 
teristics of  the  immigrants,  then  the  preceding  figures 
admit  of  no  other  conclusion  than  that  the  immigrants 
from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  and  Asiatic  Turkey 
have  a  racial  "tendency"  to  push  the  wages  upward, 
whereas  the  English-speaking  workmen  are  willing  to 
acquiesce  for  a  long  time  (10  years)  in  such  wages  as  the 
recent  immigrants  would  consider  unsatisfactory.  This 
palpably  unsound  conclusion  is  the  logical  consequence  of 
the  false  assumption  underlying  the  report  of  the  Immigra- 
tion Commission  on  immigrants  in  manufacturing.  The 
only  other  possible  interpretation  of  the  preceding  table  of 
variations  in  the  rates  of  wages  is  that  the  wages  remained 
stationary  in  1889-1899  because  the  growth  of  the  woolen 
industry  was  slow  during  those  years  and  that  the  wages 
increased  in  1899-1909  owing  to  the  rapid  expansion  of  the 
woolen  industry,  which  created  an  active  demand  for  labor. 
The  rapid  increase  of  the  number  of  recent  immigrant  em- 
ployees was  the  effect  of  the  increased  demand  for  labor  at 
higher  wages. 

The  growth  of  a  Western  city,  like  Los  Angeles,  from  a 
city  of  102,000  inhabitants  in  1900  to  one  of  319,000  in  1910 
through  migration  of  native  citizens,  is  accepted  by  the 
American  public  as  a  matter  of  course.  But  the  average 
American,  being  out  of  touch  with  the  strange  peoples 
whom  he  sees  filling  the  mills  of  feis  growing  city,  does  not 
realize  the  simple  fact  that  "the  channel  of  communication 
between  the  economic  opportunity  or  labor  demand  in  the 


The  Woolen  Mills  391 

United  States  and  the  labor  supply  abroad  is  ordinarily 
the  oral  or  written  accounts  of  immigrants  who  have  worked 
in  the  worsted  and  cotton  mills."  The  native  resident  of 
Lawrence,  who  may  never  have  been  as  far  away  from  home 
as  New  York,  cannot  imagine  how  these  thousands  of 
strangers  could  have  found  their  way  to  his  town  without 
"some  organized  effort."  "Everywhere  one  goes  in  the 
city  tales  are  told  of  the  efforts  made  by  one  woolen  com- 
pany to  procure  laborers  in  Europe."1  The  Commission 
has  made  an  effort  to  investigate  these  tales  with  the 
following  results: 

One  informant  had  a  cousin  in  Glasgow  who  had  written  concerning 
pictures  of  the  new  mill  which  he  had  seen,  and  concerning  an  agent  of 
the  woolen  company.  Nothing  more  definite  could  be  learned.  Another 
informant  who  was  much  exercised  over  reports  of  this  sort  had  written 
to  the  Secretary  of  the  Wool  Sorters'  Union  of  Bradford,  England,  a 
district  said  to  have  been  well  covered  with  advertising  matter,  asking 
for  information.  The  English  trade-union  official  had,  however,  seen 
no  advertisements  of  this  sort.  A  clergyman  in  close  touch  with  the 
industrial  situation  expressed  himself  as  "  convinced  that  agents  are  sent 
to  Europe  to  get  labor."  The  priest  of  the  Italian  congregation,  one  of 
the  largest  of  the  foreign  churches — the  greater  part  of  whose  member- 
ship has  come  from  abroad  within  the  past  few  years — states  that 
accounts  of  the  mills  and  assertions  that  "wages  of  $10  a  week"  are  paid 
have  appeared  in  Italian  and  other  European  newspapers.* 

It  is  evident  that  in  this  age  of  the  daily  press  news  of 
the  American  labor  market  travels  fast  all  over  the  globe. 
It  is  not  at  all  impossible  that  the  Table  on  page  774  of 
the  Report  of  the  Immigration  Commission  on  Cotton  Goods 
Manufacturing,  showing  that  some  classes  of  the  operatives 
in  the  Lawrence  mills  earned  as  much  as  $14,  $15,  and  even 
$16  a  week,  may  yet  be  republished  in  some  Old  World 
newspaper  and  have  the  effect  of  stimulating  the  immigra- 
tion of  a  fresh  supply  of  Italian  or  Syrian  laborers  for  the 
Lawrence  woolen  mills. 

In  view  of  the  general  conclusion  of  the  Immigration 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  IO.,  p.  770. 
'Ibid. 


392  Immigration  and  Labor 

Commission  that  the  recent  immigrants  are  willing  to  work 
"indefinitely  without  protest"  for  low  wages,1  it  is  interest- 
ing to  note  the  characterization  of  the  recent  immigrants 
by  a  number  of  superintendents  and  foremen  of  the  two 
largest  Lawrence  mills.  "While  opinions  differ  somewhat, 
there  appears  to  be  a  considerable  uniformity  of  judgment 
as  to  their  characteristics."  The  Italians  are  quick  to 
leave  their  positions  if  they  see  any  apparent  advantage 
elsewhere.  One  mill  superintendent  stated  that  "they  no 
sooner  get  a  job  than  they  want  something  better;  they 
work  in  droves;  discharge  one  and  they  all  go."a 

That  such  characteristics  are  favorable  to  concerted 
action  for  economic  improvement,  has  been  demonstrated 
by  the  recent  strike  of  the  polyglot  working  force  at  the 
Lawrence  mills.  An  observer  whose  sympathies  were  with 
old-line  trade-unionism,  noted  with  surprise  that  "the 
capacity  of  this  great  host  of  recent  immigrants,  represent- 
ing a  number  of  supposedly  alienated  nationalities,  for 
continuous,  effective  solidarity  is  one  of  the  revelations  of 
the  present  strike."3 

The  measure  of  success  achieved  by  these  alien  strikers 
can  be  realized  by  comparison  with  the  statistics  of  strikes 
for  the  twenty-year  period  1881-1900,  when  the  operatives 
in  the  woolen  and  worsted  mills  of  Massachusetts  were 
practically  all  of  the  English-speaking  races.  During  that 
period  there  were  in  all  81  strikes,  of  which  only  9  were 
declared  by  labor  organizations,  while  72  were  unorganized 
movements,  like  the  recent  strike  at  Lawrence.  The 
aggregate  number  of  strikers  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts 
for  the  twenty  years  was  only  5618,  i.  e.,  about  one  third  of 
the  number  engaged  in  the  one  recent  strike  at  Lawrence. 
The  aggregate  number  thrown  out  of  employment  by  the 
strikes  was  10,144  for  the  whole  period,  but  16,117  opera- 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  p.  541. 
1  Ibid.,  vol.  10,  p.  771. 

»  T\it,  Survey,  March  16, 1912,  p.  1930:  "The  Clod  Stirs. "  By  Robert 
A.  Woods,  head  worker  of  South  End  House  of  Boston. 


The  Woolen  Mills  393 

tives  remained  at  work  while  the  strikes  were  on.  Of  the 
83  mills  involved  only  31  were  forced  to  close  while  52  were 
able  to  run  with  the  majority  that  remained  at  work. * 

Thus  with  all  odds  against  them,  the  recent  immigrants 
speaking  in  sixteen  different  languages,  have  given  proof 
of  far  greater  cohesion  than  the  English-speaking  operatives 
of  former  years. 

x  Sixteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  Table  iv.t 
pp.  332-355- 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  IRON  AND  STEEL  WORKERS 

THE  twelve-hour  day,  the  twenty-four-hour  shift,  and 
Sunday  labor,  not  as  an  emergency,  but  as  an  integral 
part  of  the  system,  have  of  late  caused  wide  discussion 
of  the  iron  and  steel  industry.  The  public  conscience 
demanded  to  know  who  was  responsible  for  those  labor 
conditions.  The  offenders  were  easily  discovered.  Inas- 
much as  three  fourths  of  the  unskilled  men  working  those 
long  hours  were  found  to  be  Southern  and  Eastern  Euro- 
peans, it  became  evident  that  it  was  they  who  were  to 
blame  for  accepting  such  intolerable  working  conditions. 
A  representative  of  a  labor  constituency,  speaking  on  the 
floor  of  Congress,  declared  that  "in  the  steel  mills  of 
Pittsburgh,  Chicago,  and  Milwaukee,  where  thirty  years 
ago  the  so-called  princes  of  labor  used  to  get  from  $10  to 
$15  a  day,  the  modern  white  coolies  get  $1.75  for  twelve 
hours  a  day,  seven  days  in  the  week,"  the  change  being 
due  to  the  "Slavonians,  Italians,  Greeks,  Russians,  and 
Armenians,"  who  "have  been  brought  into  this  country  by 
the  million1'  and  "simply  because  they  have  a  lower  stand- 
ard of  living  .  .  .  have  crowded  out  the  Americans,  Germans, 
Englishmen,  and  Irishmen, "  from  the  mills. x 

Such  generalizations  as  these  represent  the  popular  con- 
ception of  the  causes  of  long  hours  and  low  wages  in  the 
iron  and  steel  industry.  The  principal  fallacy  underlying 

'Speech  of  Hon.  Victor  L.  Berger,-of  Wisconsin,  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  Wednesday,  June  14, 1911.  Congressional  Record,  pp. 
2026-2030. 

394 


The  Iron  and  Steel  Workers          395 

this  interpretation  has  been  shown  in  Chapter  VII.:  there 
has  been  no  "crowding  out"  of  American,  English,  Irish, 
or  German  steel  workers  by  immigrants  "brought"  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  The  development  of  the 
iron  and  steel  industry  has  been  so  rapid  that  all  but  a 
small  percentage  of  the  English-speaking  workmen  have 
been  advanced  to  higher  positions  and  their  places  have 
been  filled  with  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans.  The 
new  immigrants  do  not  compete  with  the  native  and  older 
immigrant  workmen,  and  can  therefore  not  affect  their 
wages.  4fc 

The  parallel  between  the  "princes  of  labor"  and  the 
"white  coolies"  is  equaljpr  without  an  historical  foundation. 
Princes  have  at  all  times  been  few.  "The  old  reputation 
of  the  steel  industry  as  one  of  exceptionally  high  wages  is 
false  so  far  as  the  rank  and  file  are  concerned,"  says  Mr. 
Fitch  of  the  Pittsburgh  Survey  staff,  who  has  made  a  study 
of  the  steel  workers,  "neither,  on  the  other  hand,  should  it 
be  singled  out  as  an  unusual  type,  as  an  industry  in  which 
the  majority  of  the  men  are  paid  at  the  lowest  rates."1 
The  rollers,  heaters,  and  other  skilled  men,  whose  earnings 
in  the  early  days  often  exceeded  the  salary  of  the  superin- 
tendent, were  only  a  small  fraction  of  the  total  force. 

The  high  earnings  of  the  few  skilled  men  often  repre- 
sented profit  rather  than  wages.  In  the  early  '80 's  the 
contract  system  was  the  prevailing  method  of  hiring  labor 
in  the  mills: 

A  man  would  contract  with  the  company  to  run  a  single  mill,  from  the 
furnaces  to  the  piling  beds  of  the  shears,  and  like  any  other  contractor 
he  derived  his  profit  from  the  margin  between  what  the  company  paid 
him  for  the  tonnage  turned  out  and  what  he  paid  the  men  for  it.  The 
contractor,  while  usually  known  as  the  roller,  frequently  did  no  work 
at  all,  having  two  practical  rollers  employed  on  the  mill.  At  the  same 
time  he  secured  a  considerable  income  for  himself  by  paying  the  men  as 
low  wages  as  possible,  and  steel  workers  got  a  reputation  for  being  very 
highly  paid  workmen  on  account,  of  the  large  earnings  of  these  contractors. 
A  statement  from  the  proprietor  of  one  of  the  "largest  rolling  mills  in 

1  John  A.  Fitch,  "  The  Steel  Workers."    The  Pittsburgh  Survey,  p.  150. 


396 


Immigration  and  Labor 


the  District,"  regarding  wages  paid  in  his  mill  in  1881-1882,  was  to  the 
effect  that  under  the  contract  system  one  steel  worker  had  made  $25,000 
in  a  year.  A  sheet  shearer  made  $12.00  per  day  and  paid  his  helper 
$2.00.  A  hammerman  in  charge  of  both  turns  made  $i  7.00  per  day  and 
paid  his  helper  $2.50.' 

The  proportion  of  employees  who  were  paid  each  rate 
of  wages  in  the  rolling  mills  of  Ohio  in  1884,  when  the 
number  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  among  them 
was  negligible,  appears  from  Table  118.  The  number  of 


TABLE 


-C/     llO^k 

SELECTS?  ROLLING 

f 


CLASSIFICATION  OF   EMPLOYEES  IN  SELECTEU  ROLLING    MILLS  OF  OHIO 
BY    RATES    OF    WEEKLY    WAGES,     1884.' 


Total 

Rates  of  weekly 
wages 

Skilled* 

Semi- 

skilled 

Laborers 

Number 

Per  cent 

Under  j 

$IOtOj 

10 
\12 

— 

— 

699 
360 

699 
360 

32-3 
16.9 

$12  to* 

5l5 

— 

199 

199 

9.6 

$15  to  1 

>i8 

— 

95 

— 

95 

4-5 

$18  to  \ 
$25  to  J 

^25 
flO 

415 

4 

—  — 

419 
H7 

19.6 
6.9 

$30  to  $60 

158 

— 

— 

158 

7-5 

$60  and  over 

57 

— 

— 

57 

2.7 

Total 

777 

298 

1059 

2134 

100.0 

"princes  of  labor"  did  not  exceed  57  in  a  total  force  of 
2134,  i.  e.,  2.7  per  cent.  On  the  other  hand,  the  number  of 
"white  coolies"  who  were  paid  less  than  $10  a  week,  i.  e., 
less  than  $1.75  per  day,  was  then  as  high  as  one  third  of  the 
total  force,  and  those  who  were  paid  less  than  $12  a 
week  numbered  nearly  one  half  of  all  employees.  There  is 
no  reason  to  assume  that  the  wages  in  Ohio  materially 

1  Fitch,  loc.  «/.,  p.  99. 

'Report  of  the  Ohio  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  1885,  Table  51,  pp. 
185-186.  The  statistics  comprise  only  those  mills  for  which  complete 
data  were  available. 

» Includes:  Rollers,  nailers,  heaters,  and  puddlers. 


The  Iron  and  Steel  Workers         397 

differed  from  those  paid  at  the  time  in  other  centers  of  the 
iron  and  steel  industry. 

The  Immigration  Commission  made  a  comparative 
statistical  study  of  the  rates  of  wages  paid  by  one  steel 
company  at  different  periods,  going  as  far  back  as  1880, 
and  reached  the  following  conclusion: 

An  inspection  of  the  wage  scale  paid  by  the  steel  company  during  the 
past  eighteen  years — the  period  marked  by  the  coming  of  the  immigrants 
in  greatest  numbers — reveals  the  fact  that  wages  have  risen  and  fallen 
in  good  and  bad  times  equally  for  skilled  labor,  largely  free  from  direct 
immigration  competition,  and  for  unskilled  labor,  now  largely  per- 
formed by  immigrants.1 

The  wage  scale  appearing  in  the  report  includes  no  rolling 
mills  where  exceptionally  high  rates  were  earned  by  a  few 
men  of  special  skill.  The  highest  rate  appearing  in  the 
scale  for  1 880  is  $3  per  day  paid  to  engineers ;  the  highest 
in  1885  is  $3.42  for  brick  masons.  Neither  of  these  two 
classes  were  iron  and  steel  workers  in  a  proper  sense.  The 
highest  paid  among  iron  and  steel  workers  proper  in  1880 
were  boiler-makers,  whose  maximum  rate  was  $2.75.  But 
the  wages  of  laborers  in  1880  were  as  low  as  $1.10,  and  in 
1885  as  low  as  $i.  There  was  a  general  drop  in  the 
rates  of  wages  at  the  blast  furnaces  and  in  the  Bessemer 
department  between  1880  and  1885,  when  immigration 
from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  was  insignificant. 
There  was  also  a  drop  in  the  rates  for  several  occupations 
from  1890  to  1895,  which  was  obviously  due  to  the  effects 
of  the  crisis  of  1893.  Since  1895  wages  at  the  blast  furnaces 
and  in  the  Bessemer  department  have  been  on  the  increase, 
while  in  the  mechanical  department,  the  wages  of  skilled 
mechanics  have  been  subject  to  sharp  fluctuations.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  wages  of  unskilled  laborers,  most  of  whom 
are  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe,  have  steadily 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  8,  p.  601. 


Immigration  and  Labor 

risen,  while  the  pay  of  the  engineers,  who  are  mostly  "Eng- 
lish-speaking,"  has  not  come  up  to  the  1880  level.  A 
summary  of  the  figures  is  given  in  Table  119  next  below.1 

TABLE  119. 

DAILY  WAGES  OF  EMPLOYEES  IN  STEEL  COMPANY  NO.  I,  l88o-I9O8. 


Laborers 

Other  unskilled  or 
semi-skilled 

All  others 

Year 

Lowest 

Highest 

Lowest 

Highest 

Lowest 

Highest 

1880 

$I.IO 

$1.23 

$1.05 

$1-55 

$1.60 

$3.00 

1885 

I.OO 

1.04 

.68 

1.48 

1-54 

342 

1890 

I.OO 

I.IO 

•75 

1.25 

1.26 

2.70 

1895 

I.OO 

I.IO 

I.OO 

1-35 

145 

3.00 

I90O 

I.OO 

1.20 

1.15 

1.50 

1-55 

3-65 

1903 

1.30 

1.30 

I.IO 

2.IO 

2.25 

3-24 

1908 

1.38 

145 

1.  20 

2.2O 

2.25 

3-60 

As  stated,  the  wage  statistics  of  the  Immigration  Com- 
mission do  not  include  rolling  mills.  From  data  published 
by  the  Ohio  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  it  appears  that  the 
average  wages  of  laborers  in  rolling  mills  increased,  from 
1884  to  1902,  50  per  cent,  as  shown  in  Table  120: 

TABLE  120. 

COMPARATIVE  WAGES  OF  LABORERS  IN  ROLLING  MILLS,  OHIO,  1884-1902.' 


Year 

Number  reported 

Average  daily  wages 

1884 
1902 

4,134 
11,560 

$1.05 
1-58 

An  intelligent  comparison  of  the  wages  of  iron  and  steel 
workers  at  present  and  in  the  period  preceding  the  immigra- 

1  For  details  of  the  scale,  see  Appendix,  Table  XXV. 
•  Reports  of  the  Ohio  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  1885,  p.  187;  1903,  p. 
429. 


The  Iron  and  Steel  Workers         399 

tion  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  must  take  into 
consideration  the  revolution  in  technical  methods  which  has 
occurred  in  the  iron  and  steel  industry  during  the  interven- 
ing years.  Prior  to  1890,  less  than  one  half  of  all  pig  iron 
produced  was  made  into  steel;  in  1909  all  but  7  per  cent  of 
the  pig  iron  reached  the  market  as  steel.  Until  1890  the 
manufacture  of  iron  other  than  steel  exhibited  a  rapid 
growth;  from  1880  to  1890  its  output  doubled.  Since  the 
latter  year,  however,  it  began  to  decline;  from  5,000,000 
tons  in  1890  it  dropped  to  about  1,800,000  tons  in  1909. 
The  majority  of  the  men  who  had  acquired  skill  in  the  iron 
mills  found  their  occupations  gone.  Judged  by  the  ton- 
nage of  pig  iron,  the  change  must  have  affected  as  many 
iron  workers  as  there  had  been  employed  in  all  the  mills  in 
1887.  At  the  same  time  the  production  of  steel  has  in- 
creased sixfold  since  1890.*  This  marvelous  growth  was 
made  possible  only  by  the  adoption  of  new  methods  of 
steel-making.  All  these  changes  necessitated  a  thorough 
readjustment  of  the  laboring  forces.  The  transformation 
is  well  described  in  the  following  excerpts  from  Mr.  Fitch's 
study  of  The  Steel  Workers: 

Through  the  revolutionary  changes  in  method,  machinery  has  dis- 
placed men  to  a  remarkable  extent.  The  proportion  of  skilled  steel 
workers  needed  for  the  operation  of  a  plant  has  decreased.  At  the 
same  time,  the  large  companies  have  so  increased  their  capacity  that 
they  are  employing  more  men  than  ever  before,  until  to-day  60  per  cent 
of  the  men  employed  in  the  steel  industry  are  unskilled,  and  that  60 
per  cent  is  greater  in  numbers  than  the  total  working  force  twenty 
years  ago.  In  no  part  of  the  steel  manufacture  have  inventions  and 
improvements  had  such  an  effect  upon  working  conditions  as  in  the 
rolling  mills.  Twenty  years  ago  these  mills  were  alive  with  men.  To- 
day you  will  find  large  numbers  of  men  in  the  guide  and  merchant  mills, 
but  at  the  blooming  mills,  the  plate  mills,  and  the  structural  and  rail 
mills,  you  have  to  look  sharply  not  to  miss  them  entirely.  These  mills 
have  become  largely  automatic.  The  two  improvements  that  have 
contributed  most  to  the  cutting-down  of  the  laboring  force  are  the 
electric  crane  and  the  movable  roll  tables.  .  .  .  The  electric  crane 

1  Computed  from  Statistical  Abstract  of  the  United  States,  1911,  p.  710. 


400  Immigration  and  Labor 

operates  over  the  whole  length  of  the  mill.  Heavy  material,  that 
formerly  a  dozen  moved  with  difficulty,  is  now  picked  up  and  moved 
easily  by  two  men,  working  with  a  crane.  Roll  changing  has  become  an 
easier  and  swifter  process  through  the  aid  of  the  crane,  and  practically 
all  the  heavy  lifting  and  carrying  within  the  mill  is  thus  accomplished 
by  electric  power.  ...  As  in  the  case  of  blast  furnace  improvements, 
the  effect  has  been  to  reduce  the  number  of  men  employed.  .  .  . 

This  tendency  to  make  processes  automatic  has  resulted  not  only  in  a 
lessened  cost  with  an  increased  tonnage,  but  it  has  also  reinforced  the 
control  of  the  employers  over  their  men.  When  the  roll  tables  were 
introduced,  they  threw  many  roughers  and  catchers  out  of  employment; 
beyond  that,  they  lessened  the  importance  to  the  employers  of  the  men 
remaining.  Men  can  learn  to  pull  levers  more  easily  than  they  can 
reach  the  skilled  mastery  of  a  position  where  the  greatest  dependence 
is  on  the  man  and  the  least  on  the  machine.  Accordingly  this  develop- 
ment has  lessened  the  value  to  the  employer  of  all  the  men  in  a  plant,  and 
at  the  same  time  has  made  the  job  of  every  man,  skilled  and  unskilled, 
to  a  greater  or  less  degree  insecure.  .  .  .  The  aim  to-day  seems  to  be 
to  make  the  whole  process  as  mechanical  as  possible.  Fifteen  or  twenty 
years  ago  a  large  proportion  of  the  employees  in  any  steel  plant  were 
skilled  men.  The  percentage  of  the  highly  skilled  has  steadily  grown 
less,  and  the  percentage  of  the  unskilled  has  as  steadily  increased. 
The  plants  of  the  Carnegie  Steel  Company  in  Allegheny  County  employ 
in  seasons  of  prosperity  an  aggregate  of  over  23,000  men.  Of  these 
about  17  per  cent  are  skilled,  21  per  cent  semi-skilled,  and  62  per  cent 
unskilled,  according  to  the  classification  employed  by  the  company.1 

Taking  the  classification  of  Table  118  as  a  standard  of 
comparison,  we  find  that  in  1884  more  than  one  third  of 
all  men  employed  in  rolling  mills  were  skilled,  whereas  by 
1907  their  proportion  had  shrunk  to  17  per  cent.  Had 
there  been  no  expansion  in  the  steel  industry,  more  than  one 
half  of  the  skilled  men  employed  in  1884  would  have  been 
reduced  to  the  semi-skilled  grade.  But  as  the  growth  of 
production  outran  the  progress  of  labor-saving  methods 
and  machinery,  the  skilled  and  semi-skilled  men  who  were 
displaced  from  one  department  were  absorbed  in  others, 
and  still  there  were  openings  in  the  higher  grades  which  were 
filled  by  promotion  from  the  ranks  of  the  older  unskilled 
men.  Of  course  the  whole  trend  of  the  technical  progress 

1  Fitcht  loc.  tit.,  pp.  3-4, 55-56, 139-141- 


The  Iron  and  Steel  Workers         401 

in  the  steel  industry  being  toward  elimination  of  human 
skill,  the  advancement  of  the  minority  to  skilled  and  semi- 
skilled positions  depended  upon  the  employment  of  ever- 
increasing  numbers  of  unskilled  laborers.  For  reasons 
explained  in  Chapter  VIII., 

English,  Irish,  and  German  immigration  began  to  fall  off  at  just  about 
the  time  that  the  steel  industry  began  to  expand  so  rapidly  and  at  the 
same  time  to  introduce  the  automatic  processes.  This  created  a  tre- 
mendous market  for  unskilled  labor  just  as  the  field  of  immigration 
was  shifting  from  Northwestern  to  Southeastern  Europe.  Slavs  coming 
to  America  to  perform  the  unskilled  manual  labor,  and  finding  it  in  the 
steel  industry,  sent  for  their  relatives  and  neighbors.  These  automatic 
accretions,  through  letters  and  friends  returning  to  the  old  country  and 
spreading  the  tidings  of  where  work  is  to  be  had,  are  at  once  the  most 
natural  and  most  widespread  factors  in  mobilizing  an  immigrant  labor 
force.1 

Mr.  Fitch  is  careful  to  note  that  "the  newer  immigrants 
are  not  working  for  less  pay  for  a  day's  rough  work  than  the 
races  they  replaced.  The  money  wages  paid  for  common 
labor  in  the  Pittsburgh  steel  mills  have  been  going  up  during 
the  period  referred  to.  "2  It  is  clear  that  the  recent  immi- 
grants were  not  "brought"  to  this  country  to  undercut 
the  wages  of  the  older  employees. 

The  Irish  were -not  driven  out  of  the  blast  furnaces  by  a  fresh  immi- 
gration with  lower  standards  of  living  [says  Mr.  Fitch  further];  rather 
the  conditions  in  the  industry — the  twelve-hour  day,  the  days  and  the 
weeks  without  a  day  of  rest,  the  twenty-four-hour  shift — made  the  life 
intolerable.  They  could  make  as  good  a  living  working  fewer  hours 
a  day,  and  only  six  days  in  the  week,  in  other  positions  and  in  other 
industries.  So  the  Irish  worker  went  out  and  the  Slav  came  in.  3 

The  effect  of  these  readjustments  on  the  distribution  of 
the  working  force  by  race  and  occupation  in  the  Pittsburgh 
district  can  be  seen  from  Table  121. 

The  average  proportion  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Euro- 
peans among  the  iron  and  steel  workers,  according  to  the 
investigations  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  was  44.5 

1  Fitch,  loc.  cit.t  p.  143.  »  Ibid.,  pp.  142-143. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  146. 


402 


Immigration  and  Labor 


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The  Iron  and  Steel  Workers         403 

per  cent  in  the  East  and  49.4  per  cent  in  the  Middle  West.  * 
The  proportion  of  Slavs  among  the  employees  of  the  Car- 
negie Steel  Company  was  accordingly  above  the  average, 
which  ought  to  emphasize  the  effects  of  immigration  upon 
labor  conditions  in  the  iron  and  steel  industry. 

The  classification  of  employees  by  the  Carnegie  Steel 
Company  is  different  from  that  followed  in  Table  34. a  The 
Immigration  Commission  draws  the  dividing  line  between 
skilled  and  unskilled  occupations  at  $1.45  a  day,  whereas 
the  Carnegie  Steel  Company  includes  among  the  unskilled 
some  occupations  with  a  higher  average  wage.  Moreover, 
the  Immigration  Commission  has  disregarded  the  semi- 
skilled class.  According  to  the  classification  of  the  company, 
a  little  over  one  sixth  of  the  "unskilled"  employees  in  1907 
were  English-speaking;  of  the  semi-skilled  two  fifths  were 
immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe ;  among  the 
skilled  only  one  tenth  were  of  the  new  immigrant  races. 

The  wages  of  each  of  these  classes  have  been  variously 
affected  by  the  changes  in  machinery  and  methods.  The 
wages  of  unskilled  laborers,  five  sixths  of  whom  are  immi- 
grants from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe,  "have  increased 
in  the  last  few  years.  In  1892  they  received  14  cents  an 
hour  at  Homestead.  In  1907-08  their  pay  was  i6j^  cents 
an  hour  in  the  mills  of  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation — 
an  advance  of  18  per  cent  over  the  hourly  pay  of  1892. 
This  increase  fell  short  by  4  per  cent  in  keeping  pace  with 
the  increased  cost  of  necessities  as  indicated  by  the  Bureau 
of  Labor  Bulletin.  ...  In  May,  1910,  announcement 
was  made  of  a  general  increase  in  wages  for  all  employees 
of  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation.  It  was  described 
as  approximating  6  per  cent  over  existing  rates.  Common 
laborers'  pay  was  increased  in  the  mills  of  the  Corporation 
in  the  Pittsburg  district  from  i6j^  cents  an  hour  to  17^2 
cents.  This  is  an  increase  of  25  per  cent  over  the  14-cent 
rate  paid  in  1892. " 

1  Compiled  from  the  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  8, 
Table  23,  pp.  34-35.  3See  Chapter  VII. 


404  Immigration  and  Labor 

At  the  opposite  extreme  are  placed,  by  Mr.  Fitch,  "the 
men  of  highest  skill,  headed  by  the  rollers  and  heaters,  who 
have  gangs  working  under  them  and  are  practically  fore- 
men. These  men  represent  not  over  5  per  cent  of  all 
employees."  They  are  only  a  minority  among  the  men 
classed  by  the  company  as  skilled.  Of  the  latter  class,  as 
stated,  only  one  tenth  are  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans ; 
it  is  reasonably  certain,  however,  that  none  of  them  are 
among  "the  men  at  the  top."1  These  "aristocrats  of 
labor"  have  had  their  earnings  reduced  since  1892.  The 
cuts  vary,  according  to  position,  from  5.39  per  cent  to  41.20 
per  cent. 

The  intermediate  35  per  cent  are  "the  real  steel  workers. 
.  .  .  They  are  men  skilled  in  steel  manufacture.  .  .  . 
These  men  are  individually  essential  to  the  industry.''' 
Their  wages  have  remained  in  a  "stationary  condition, 
and  if  compared  with  the  increased  cost  of  living,"  exhibit 
a  "downward  tendency. "  The  proportion  of  Slavs  among 
them  can  be  estimated  at  31  per  cent.2  This  class  holds  in 
every  respect  an  intermediate  place;  they  have  not  fared 
as  well  relatively  as  the  immigrants  from  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europe  who  form  the  bulk  of  the  unskilled  force ; 
still  with  one  third  among  them  drawn  from  the  new  immi- 
gration they  have  done  better  than  the  "aristocrats  of 
labor"  who  do  not  come  in  contact  with  the  new  immigrants. 

The  question  arises,  has  not  the  competition  of  the  Slav 
prevented  the  wages  of  the  skilled  men  below  the  grade  of 
foreman  from  rising  apace  with  the  cost  of  living?  An 

1 "  I  was  unable  to  learn  of  any  Slavs  who  had  worked  up  to  positions 
as  rollers  or  heaters  in  the  Pittsburgh  mills,"  says  Miss  Byington  in  her 
study  of  Homestead.  "This  is  due  without  doubt  to  the  poorer 
industrial  equipment  of  the  immigrants,  as  well  as  to  the  unwillingness 
of  the  foremen  to  give  the  better  positions  to  them.*' — The  Pittsburgh 
Survey,  "Homestead,"  p.  148. 

"This  ratio  is  obtained  by  computation  from  Table  121,  allowing 
5  per  cent  of  all  employees  for  the  "men  at  the  top"  and  placing  all 
skilled  and  semi-skilled  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  in  the  inter- 
mediate class. 


The  Iron  and  Steel  Workers         405 

answer  to  this  question  may  be  found  if  the  wages  of  the 
Pittsburgh  skilled  men  are  compared  with  those  of  the  skilled 
men  employed  in  the  Southern  mills  where  there  is  very 
little  competition  from  new  immigration. 

The  boundary  line  drawn  by  the  Immigration  Commis- 
sion between  skilled  and  unskilled  workers — $1.45  per 
day — obviously  does  not  fit  the  conditions  in  the  Pitts- 
burgh district,  where  common  laborers  were  paid  16.5  cents 
per  hour  previous  to  the  recent  raise.  The  recent  report  of 
the  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor  on  labor  conditions  in 
the  iron  and  steel  industry  divides  all  employees  into  three 
classes:  (i)  The  lowest  class,  of  the  same  grade  as 
common  laborers,  whose  earnings  are  less  than  18  cents  per 
hour;  (2)  the  highest  class,  whose  earnings  are  25  cents  and 
over  per  hour;  and  (3)  the  intermediate  class,  from  18  to 
25  cents.  The  proportions  of  these  classes  in  the  total 
number  of  employees  are:  49.7  per  cent  for  the  unskilled, 
23.6  per  cent  for  the  skilled,  and  26.7  per  cent  for  the  inter- 
mediate.1 The  latter  class  differs  too  widely  from  the 
intermediate  class  of  the  Pittsburgh  Survey  to  be  comparable 
with  it.  A  fairly  uniform  basis,  however,  can  be  selected 
from  the  three  classifications,  as  follows : 

(1)  From  the  Pittsburgh  Survey:  all  employees  earning 
over  $2.50  per  day.8 

(2)  From   the   report   of   the   Bureau   of   Labor:   all 
employees  earning  25  cents  and  over,  per  hour. 

(3)  From  the  report  of  the  Immigration  Commission: 
all  male  employees  18  years  of  age  and  over  who  earn  $17.50 
and  over  per  week. 

The  close  similarity  of  the  three  groups  appears  from  the 
comparative  table  on  page  406. 

The  proportion  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  in 
this  grade  was  16.1  per  cent  in  the  East,  while  in  the  South 
the  aggregate  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  and 

1  Summary  of  Wages  and  Hours  of  Labor  from  the  Report  on  Conditions 
of  Employment  in  the  Iron  and  Steel  Industry  in  the  United  States,  p.  26. 
3  Fitch,  loc.  tit.,  Table  8,  p.  163. 


406 


Immigration  and  Labor 


negroes  in  the  same  grade  was  only  2.2  per  cent.  Thus  in 
the  East  there  were  relatively  about  twice  as  many  English- 
speaking  employees  receiving  the  highest  rates  as  in  the 
South,  notwithstanding  the  much  higher  percentage  of 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  competing  for  the  same 
positions  in  the  East. 

TABLE  122. 

PER  CENT  OF  SKILLED  IRON  AND   STEEL  WORKERS,   BY  LOCATION. 


Earnings 

Location 

Source 

250.  and 
over  per 
hour 

$2.50  and 
over  per 
day 

117.50  and 
over  per 
week 

Allegheny  County 
Pittsburgh  District 

Pittsburgh  Survey 
U.  S.  Bureau  of 
Labor 

2d  06 

28.17 



East  

Immigration  Com- 

mission 

24..O 

South  

i  Immigration          ) 
Commission 

T  1  2fi 

I*  6 

U.  S.  Bureau  of  ( 
Labor 

A^.U 

In  order  to  assemble  into  one  group  all  Southern  mill- 
workers  who  perform  the  same  grade  of  labor  as  the  men 
employed  in  Eastern  mills  at  $17.50  per  week  and  upwards, 
we  must  descend  one  step  and  admit  all  Southern  iron  and 
steel  workers  earning  $15  per  week. 

As  can  be  seen  from  Table  123  on  page  407,  two  fifths 
(42  per  cent)  of  the  skilled  iron  and  steel  workers  in  the 
Southern  mills  earn  only  from  $15  to  $17.50  per  week, 
whereas  all  employees  of  the  same  grade  in  the  Eastern 
mills  are  paid  not  less  than  $17.50  per  week.  The  differ- 
ence cannot  be  explained  by  the  competition  of  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europeans  or  negroesfbecause  the  aggregate 
of  those  two  racial  groups  among  Southern  iron  and  steel 
Corkers  earning  $15  and  over  does  not  exceed  1.8  per  cent, 


The  Iron  and  Steel  Workers 


407 


whereas  in  the  Eastern  mills  the  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europeans  constitute  16.1  per  cent  of  all  mill  men  earning 
$17.50  and  upwards. 

TABLE  123. 

PER    CENT    OF    SKILLED    IRON     AND     STEEL     WORKERS    WITH     SPECIFIED 
EARNINGS  IN  EASTERN  AND  SOUTHERN  MILLS.1 


District 

Earnings  per  week 

Per  cent  of  all 
employees 

Per  cent 
within  the  grade 

South  

($15  to  $17.50 
J  $17.  50  and  over 

9.8 
13-6 

42 
58 

East 

(  $15  and  over 
$17.  50  and  over 

23-4 

24.  O 

100 
IOO 

There  is  considerable  variation  in  the  proportion  of 
skilled  and  unskilled  labor  employed  in  various  departments 
of  iron  and  steel  mills.  This  variation  may  affect  geographi- 
cal comparisons  which  take  no  account  of  industrial  speciali- 
zation. In  order  to  eliminate  this  source  of  error  the 
proportions  of  employees  earning  25  cents  per  hour  and 
over  in  productive  occupations2  are  compared  in  Table 
124  by  departments.  The  figures  show  that,  in  all  de- 
partments but  one,  a  larger  proportion  of  all  ^employees 
are  paid  those  rates  in  the  Pittsburgh  district  than  in  the 
South.  It  may  be  assumed  that  the  substitution  of  ma- 
chinery for  human  skill  in  the  Pittsburgh  district  is  as  far 
advanced  as  in  the  Southern  mills;  the  proportion  of  skilled 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  9,  pp.  134,  355. 

2  The  following  table  is  confined  to  "productive  occupations"  in 
order  to  exclude  from  the  comparison,  as  far  as  possible,  others  than 
iron   and   steel  workers.      "The   wages  of  workmen   in   mechanical 
trades  are  much  more  nearly  standardized  in  the  different  districts 
than  of  the  employees  in  the  productive  occupations,  who  are  depend- 
ent almost  entirely  on  the  iron  and  steel  industry  for  employment. " 
Summary  of  Wages  and  Hours  of  Labor  in  the  Iron  and  Steel  Industry, 
P- 33- 


408 


Immigration  and  Labor 


men  in  each  department  of  the  Pittsburgh  mills  may,  there- 
fore, be  accepted  as  the  standard.  It  follows,  accordingly, 
that  in  the  Southern  mills  a  fraction  varying  from  one  sixth 
to  two  thirds  of  all  skilled  men  are  paid  less  than  25  cents 
per  hour,  whereas  in  the  Pittsburgh  district  all  men  of  the 
same  class  are  paid  25  cents  and  over. 

TABLE  124. 

PER  CENT  OF  EMPLOYEES  IN  EACH  DEPARTMENT  EARNING  25  CENTS  AND 
OVER  PER  HOUR,  IN  THE  PITTSBURGH  AND  THE  SOUTHERN  DISTRICT.1 


Department 

Pittsburgh 

South 

Difference 

Per  cent  of 
all  employees 

Per  cent  of 
Pittsburgh 
ratio 

Puddling  mills       .       .   . 

70 

47 
38 
36 

II 
6 

58 
3i 

22 
2O 

65 

22 
2 

—  12 

-16 
-16 
-16 

+4 

-4 

-17 

-34 
-42 

-44 

—  22 
-67 

Blooming  mills  

Bar  mills  

Bessemer  converters.  .  .  . 
Miscellaneous  mills  

Open-hearth  furnaces  .  .  . 
Blast  furnaces  

The  exception  noted  above  applies  to  eleven  miscellaneous 
rod  mills  in  the  United  States  employing  a  total  of  333  men 
at  25  cents  and  over  per  hour,2  i.  e.t  about  J  per  cent  of 
the  total  in  productive  occupations.  The  number  is  too 
small  to  affect  the  labor  situation.3 

The  preceding  comparisons  lead  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  rates  of  wages  of  iron  and  steel  workers  vary  inversely  as  the 
ratio  of  recent  immigrants:  The  wages  of  the  unskilled, 
the  bulk  of  whom  are  Slavs,  have  kept  pace  with  the  cost 
of  living;  the  wages  of  the  "aristocrats  of  labor,"  none  of 
whom  are  Slavs,  have  been  reduced;  the  money  wages  of 

1  Summary  of  Wages  and  Hours  of  Labor  in  the  Iron  and  Steel  Indus- 
try, p.  32.  » Ibid.,  pp.  16  and  25. 

a  At  the  present  writing  the  full  report  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor  is  still 
in  press,  while  the  published  summary  does  not  go  into  details  of  a 
local  character. 


The  Iron  and  Steel  Workers         409 

other  skilled  men,  two  thirds  of  whom  are  English-speaking, 
have  remained  stationary — the  wages  of  this  class  of  em- 
ployees are  lower  in  the  South,  where  they  meet  no  immi- 
grant competition,  than  in  the  Pittsburgh  District. 

This  correlation  between  the  percentage  of  recent  immi- 
grants and  the  variation  of  the  rate  of  wages  is  not  the 
manifestation  of  some  innate  racial  predisposition  to  higher 
wages,  but  the  working  of  the  law  of  supply  and  demand 
in  the  labor  market.  The  employment  of  a  high  percentage 
of  immigrants  in  any  section,  industry,  or  occupation  is 
an  indication  of  an  active  demand  for  labor  in  excess  of  the 
native  supply.  Absence  of  immigrants  is  a  sign  of  a  dull 
market  for  labor.  The  wages  of  the  unskilled  Slav  laborers 
have  been  raised  because  of  the  increasing  demand  for 
unskilled  labor,  not  in  the  steel  industry  alone,  but  in  other 
industries  as  well.  The  unskilled  Slavs  "can  dig  ditches 
or  heave  coal  any  day  just  as  well  as  they  can  throw  chains 
around  piles  of  steel  billets  or  shovel  scrap  into  furnaces." 
On  the  contrary,  the  skilled  English-speaking  steel  workers, 
though  "individually  essential  to  the  industry  .  .  .  could 
not  enter  any  other  industry  without  a  reduction  in  earn- 
ing power,  because  they  are  skilled  only  as  steel  work- 
ers. "  Hence  their  acquiescence  in  a  lowered  rate  of  wages, 
whereas  the  unskilled  Slav  with  his  supposedly  "lower 
standard  of  living"  has  been  able  to  command  as  high  a 
wage  (measured  by  purchasing  power)  as  his  English- 
speaking  predecessor. 

Long  hours  and  Sunday  work  have  not  come  with  the 
new  immigration.  "Sunday  work  has  been  general  in 
blast  furnaces  in  this  country  from  the  beginning."2  In 
rolling  mills  the  practice  has  varied.  There  were  some 
mills  which  ran  on  Sundays,  as  far  back  as  the  8o's,  before 
"the  Slav  invasion."  The  Amalgamated  Association  of 
Iron  and  Steel  Workers  in  the  days  of  its  power  raised  no 
objection  to  labor  on  Sunday.  Its  main  concern  was  solely 
with  wages,  and  it  is  a  historical  fact,  worthy  of  notice, 

1  Fitch,  loc.  cit.t  p.  154.  *  Ibid.,  p.  168. 


410  Immigration  and  Labor 

that  the  twelve-hour  day  was  staunchly  defended  by  the 
organized  iron  and  steel  workers  when  the  steel  manu- 
facturers, prompted  by  technical  considerations,  attempted 
to  reduce  the  day  to  eight  hours. 

The  twelve-hour  day  was  the  outgrowth  of  metallurgical 
conditions  in  the  old  iron  mills.  In  puddling  one  charge  has 
to  be  melted,  worked,  and  taken  out  before  the  next  can 
go  in.  From  the  beginning  of  the  industry  in  the  Pittsburgh 
District,  five  charges  or  "heats"  have  been  a  day's  work  for 
a  puddler.  In  the  mills  rolling  sheet  iron,  too,  the  working 
day  was  determined  by  the  number  of  heats.  In  the  early 
days  of  the  iron  industry  five  heats  took  about  twelve  hours. 
This  was  the  basis  of  the  twelve-hour  day  with  the  two-shift 
system.  With  the  progress  of  improvements  in  furnace 
construction  and  methods,  it  became  possible  to  finish  a 
turn  of  five  heats  in  a  shorter  time  and  the  actual  working 
day  gradually  shrank  to  one  of  ten  hours  and  even  less. 
As  a  result  of  the  shortened  time,  there  came  to  be  periods 
of  idleness  between  shifts.  In  a  sheet  mill  this  interim 
between  shifts  was  especially  objectionable,  for  sheet  iron 
is  rolled  so  thin  that  good  results  can  be  obtained  only  when 
the  rolls  are  expanded  by  the  heat.  The  rolls  are  so  shaped 
that  when  cold  they  cannot  turn  out  a  sheet  of  uniform 
thickness ;  consequently  after  a  period  of  idleness  hot  scrap 
is  sent  through  them  until  they  reach  the  correct  expansion. 
To  avoid  these  periods  of  idleness,  the  manufacturers,  in 
the  8o's,  sought  to  introduce  an  eight-hour  day.  This  was 
for  a  long  time  resisted  by  the  union,  which  stood  firmly  for 
the  twelve-hour  shift.  The  reason  for  this  unusual  attitude 
was  that  the  skilled  men  who  belonged  to  the  union  were 
paid  at  piece  rates  and  apprehended  a  loss  of  a  part  of  their 
earnings  in  case  they  might  not  be  able  to  turn  out  five 
heats  in  eight  hours.  The  question  was  discussed  at  several 
national  conventions.  Some  of  the  officers  took  the  ground 
that  a  reduction  of  hours  was  desirable  even  if  it  originally 
involved  a  loss  of  earnings  to  individuals.  The  introduc- 
tion of  a  three-shift  system  would  create  a  demand  for  half 


The  Iron  and  Steel  Workers         411 

as  many  more  skilled  men  as  were  employed  at  the  time 
and  would  eventually  enable  the  members  of  the  union  to 
win  an  increase  in  piece  rates.  But  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
membership  could  not  see  so  far  ahead  and  forced  the  officers 
to  insist  upon  the  twelve-hour  day.  Some  lodges  which 
had  accepted  the  eight-hour  shift  were  suspended.  One 
of  the  presidents  of  the  union  who  supported  the  manu- 
facturers in  their  effort  to  introduce  the  eight-hour  day  was 
denounced  by  the  membership  as  a  traitor  to  the  cause  of 
labor.  The  controversy  lasted  several  years  in  the  8o's, 
when  the  iron  and  steel  workers  were  all  of  the  English- 
speaking  races.  Later  the  union  relaxed  its  rule  against 
the  eight-hour  system,  but  the  manufacturers  had  mean- 
while readjusted  themselves  to  the  old  twelve-hour  shift.1 
This  episode  characterizes  the  spirit  of  the  Amalgamated 
Association. 

The  Association  was  originally  organized  as  a  union  of 
skilled  iron  workers  and  was  very  strong  in  the  iron  industry. 
But  with  the  decline  of  the  latter  the  power  of  the  organiza- 
tion began  to  wane.  It  never  gained  strength  in  the  steel 
mills.  Out  of  3800  men  at  Homestead  when  the  strike 
began  in  1892,  only  752  were  members  in  good  standing  of 
the  Amalgamated  Association.  "The  Association  has 
always  been  an  organization  of  skilled  workers  and  has 
centered  its  efforts  on  securing  better  conditions  for  that 
class  of  labor  alone, "  says  Mr.  Fitch.  "  It  was  only  in  1889 
that  the  constitution  permitted  the  admission  of  all  men, 
except,  however,  common  laborers."2 

Nevertheless,  when  the  Amalgamated  Association  struck 
in  1892,  the  common  laborers,  the  despised  Hungarians 
and  Slavs,  stood  by  it.3  The  defeat  of  the  Homestead 
strike  broke  the  organization.  It  had  been  rapidly  increas- 

1  See  Fitch,  loc.  cit.t  pp.  90-97.  *  Ibid .  pp.  97,  98. 

*  "A  great  cause  was  in  the  balance,  and  in  their  humble  way  the 
army  of  the  poor  Hungarians  and  Slavs  understood  it, "  says  a  trade- 
union  historian  of  the  Homestead  strike. — Myron  R.  Stowell:  Fort 
Prick,  or  the  Siege  of  Homestead,  p.  86, 


412  Immigration  and  Labor 

ing  its  membership  since  1885,  when  it  had  numbered  only 
5700,  to  the  year  preceding  the  great  strike,  when  it  reported 
to  the  national  convention  a  membership  of  24,000,  organized 
in  290  lodges.  During  the  year  following  the  strike,  it 
lost  about  one  half  of  that  number.  There  were  slight 
increases  at  times  in  later  years;  since  1903,  however,  it 
has  been  gradually  declining,  until  it  had,  in  1910,  only  103 
lodges  with  a  little  over  8000  members. x  This  is  less  than 
5  per  cent  of  the  total  number  of  iron  and  steel  workers  in 
the  United  States.2 

The  strength  of  the  organization  of  the  iron  and  steel 
workers  in  the  8o's  lay  in  their  special  skill.  Though  a 
minority  of  the  force,  they  were  indispensable  to  the  indus- 
try, because  they  could  not  be  replaced.  It  is  for  this  very 
reason  that  they  barred  common  laborers  from  their  organi- 
zation: they  did  not  want  to  become  involved  in  con- 
troversies over  the  wages  of  day  laborers  who  could  easily 
be  replaced  by  others.  But  when  improved  machinery 
displaced  the  skill  of  the  mechanic  the  organization  of  the 
skilled  iron  and  steel  workers  lost  its  foothold.  To-day, 
says  Mr.  Fitch — 

every  man  is  in  training  for  the  next  position  above.  If  all  of  the 
rollers  in  the  Homestead  plant  were  to  strike  to-morrow  the  work  would 
go  on,  and  only  temporary  inconvenience,  if  any,  would  be  suffered. 
There  would  simply  be  a  step  up  along  the  line:  the  tableman  would 
take  the  rolls,  the  hooker  would  manipulate  the  tables,  perhaps  one 
of  the  shearmen's  helpers  would  take  the  hooker's  position,  and  some- 
where, away  down  the  line,  an  unskilled  yard  laborer  would  be  taken 
to  fill  the  vacancy  in  the  lowest  position  involving  skill.  The  course 
would  vary  in  the  different  styles  of  mills,  as  the  positions  vary  in 
number  and  character,  but  the  operating  principle  is  everywhere  the 
same.  In  the  open  hearth  department  the  line  of  promotion  runs 
through  common  labor,  metal  wheelers,  stock  handlers,  cinder-pit  man, 
second  helper,  and  first  helper  to  melter  foreman.  In  this  way  the 
companies  develop  and  train  their  own  men.  .  .  .  Thus  the  working 

1  Fitch,  loc.  cit.,  p.  297. 

3  In  May,  1910,  there  were  172,706  workers  employed  in  the  steel 
mills  of  the  United  States.— Summary  of  Wages  and  Hours  of  Labor  in 
the  Iron  and  Steel  Industry,  p.  17. 


The  Iron  and  Steel  Workers         413 

force  is  pyramided  and  is  held  together  by  the  ambition  of  the  men 
lower  down;  even  a  serious  break  in  the  ranks  adjusts  itself  all  but 
automatically. x 

In  1909,  an  attempt  was  made  by  "the  men  lower  down" 
to  unite  all  mill  workers  in  a  common  demand  for  better 
terms  of  employment.  In  the  McKees  Rocks  strike  the 
leaders  and  the  rank  and  file  were  mostly  recent  immigrants. 
Of  this  strike  Mr.  Fitch  has  the  following  to  say : 

In  the  summer  of  1909  there  was  a  demonstration  of  the  spirit  of 
immigrant  workmen  that  opened  the  eyes  of  the  public  to  qualities 
heretofore  unknown.  For  many  weeks  at  McKees  Rocks  they  persisted 
in  their  strike  against  the  Pressed  Steel  Car  Company.  It  had  been 
thought  that  the  Slavs  were  too  sluggish  to  resist  their  employers,  and 
unable  to  organize  along  industrial  lines.  It  was  proved  in  this  conflict 
that  neither  theory  was  correct.3 

'Fitch,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  141,  142. 
•  Ibid.,  pp.  237,  238. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE  COAL  MINERS 

THE  Immigration  Commission  considered  the  coal- 
mining industry  as  typical  of  the  conditions  created 
by  immigration,  and  gave  it  accordingly  the  most  promi- 
nent place  in  its  report.  Two  volumes  are  devoted  to 
bituminous  coal,  and  a  portion  of  a  third  to  anthracite. 
The  findings  of  the  Commission  may  be  briefly  summed  up 
as  follows :  the  English-speaking  mine  workers  do  not  desire  V 
to  associate  with  the  immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe,  consequently  those  immigrants  are  undesirable. 
There  are  in  the  reports  some  valuable  data  on  the  economic 
side  of  the  question,  but  they  have  had  no  part  in  shaping 
the  conclusions  6f"the  Commission.  It  views  the  con- 
ditions in  the  coal-mining  industry  with  the  eyes  of  the 
English-speaking  trade-union  officials,  who  apprehend  in  v 
the  multitudes  of  Slav  and  Italian  mine  workers  a  growing 
menace  to  their  influence  in  the  organization. 

To  follow  the  Commission's  summary  historical  review 
of  the  coal-mining  industry,  the  conflict  between  the  English- 
speaking  and  non-English-speaking  races  began  in  the  &o&' 
when  a  series  of  unsuccessful  strikes  forced  "a  greater  or 
less  number  of  natives,  English,  Irish,  Scotch,  and  Germans," 
to  leave  "Pennsylvania  in  search  of  better  working  con- 
ditions in  the  Middle  West  or  the  localities  in  the  Southwest 
or  West  to  which  the  recent  immigrants  had  not  penetrated 
in  important  numbers. "  The  same  situation  was  repeated 
in  the ^30*5  in  West  Virginia.  The  "constantly  growing 
number  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  .  .  .  com- 
pletely inundated  the  older  employees,"  with  the  result 

414 


The  Coal  Miners  415 

that  many  of  them  "moved  westward  in  search  of  better 
working  conditions,"  and  "the  immigrants  from  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europe  were  left  in  undisputed  control  of  the 
situation."  In  their  new  retreat  the  English-speaking  /? Di- 
mmers remained  undisturbed  until  the  first  decade  of  theT 
present  century,  when  the  advancing  columns  of  the  South- 
ern and  Eastern  Europeans  reached  them  there.  "As  the 
pressure,  resulting  from  the  increase  in  numbers  of  the  recent 
immigrants  has  become  stronger  .  .  .  the  older  immigrants 
and  natives,"  who  were  unable  to  change  their  occupation, 
moved  "  from  localities  and  Amines  where  the  competition  of 
the  Southern  and  Eastern  European  has  been  most  strongly 
felt  to  other  localities  in  the  Middle  West  or  Southwest." 
But  soon  the  first  detachments  of  the  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europeans  made  their  appearance  in  the  Southwestern 
fields  and  forced  the  "Americans  and  individual  members 
of  the  English,  Irish,  Scotch,  and  Welsh  races"  to  retreat 
to  New  Mexico  and  Colorado.  The  narrative  concludes 
with  the  following  statement,  which  sounds  the  keynote,  as 
it  were,  of  the  whole  report : 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  natives  and  the  older  immigrant  employees, 
it  therefore  seems  clearly  apparent  that  the  competition  of  recent  immi- 
grants has  caused  a  gradual  displacement,  commencing  in  Pennsylvania  '^ 
and  extending  westward,  until  at  the  present  time  the  representatives 
of  the  pioneer  employees  in  the  bituminous  mining  industry  are  making 
their  last  stand  in  the  Southwest,  and  especially  in  Kansas,  where  they 
are  gradually  being  weakened  and  are  withdrawing  to  the  newly  opened 
fields  of  the  West,  to  which  the  recent  immigrant  has  not  come  in  jm- 
portant  numbers.  Along  with  this  displacement  of  the  older  employees 
in  the  different  coal-producing  areas  has  proceeded  the  elimination  of  a 
correspondingly  large  proportion  from  the  industry  and  the  development 
of  such  working  and  Hying  conditions  that  the  sons  of  natives  and  the  »• 
second  generation  of  immigrant  races  have  only  to  a  very  small  extent 
consented  to  enter  the  industry.1 

The  story  of  the  pioneers  "making  their  last  stand" 
against  the  invaders  has  a  pathetic  sound  uncommon  in 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  i,  p.  536. 


PRODUCTION  OF  COAL  IN   STATES  WITH   AN   ANNUAL 
1880 


\20ro39 
(i  unit  =  1  ,000,000  tons) 


416 


OUTPUT  OF  NOT  LESS  THAN  I.OOO.OOO  TONS. 

IQOO 


.^\ 


. 

.  J  ^          ^K-  ; 

/   ^'^.^      ^••-.yyyo:.::.:}_         __    ' 


v  WIS. 


^<ir/&^n&M&YMB&         ) 


H.G. 


vv:-..;vrV^:/;.:;v^:: 


s.c. 


w 


1910 


, 

\i         '  ^M^TOk^A^i---^^ 


20ro39 
(i  unit  =  1 ,000,000  tons) 


417 


4i 8  Immigration  and  Labor 

official  statistical  publications.  It  does  not  belong,  how- 
ever, to  the  realm  of  history.  A  tribe  of  Indian  huntsmen, 
retreating  before  the  advancing  lines  of  paleface  invaders, 
could  find  new  hunting-grounds  in  the  untrodden  wilds  of 
the  West  and  the  Southwest.  But  the  coal  miners  could 
not  have  withdrawn  to  new  territory  unless  capital  had 
gone  there  before  them,  and  had  opened  mines,  built  houses, 
and  established  commissary  stores.  From  an  impersonal 
standpoint  "it  therefore  seems  clearly  apparent"  that  the 

"*  migrations  of  the  English-speaking  miners  were  the  effect 
of  the  opening  of  new  coal-field_s  in  the  West  andTSouthwest 
whicn  offered  better  opportunities  to  the  mine  worker  than 
the  older  fields  of  the  East.  In  the  sparsely  settled  West 
and  Southwest,  far  away  from  Eastern  competition,  coal 
prices  were  higher,  and  the  mine  operators  were  in  a  position- 

vto  offer  inducements  to  Eastern  miners  who  were  willing 
to  go  westward.  Turning  from  the  summary  to  the  ma- 
terials of  the  Immigration  Commission  we  learn  that 

both  Kansas  and  Oklahoma  were  sparsely  settled  about  1880,  when 
mining  on  a  large  scale  was  begun,  and  the  management  of  the  properties 
induced  Americans,  English,  Irish,  Scotch,  and  Welsh  to  come  from  the 
coal  regions  of  Pennsylvania  to  work  in  the  mines.  The  first  employees 
*were  brought  by  special  car  or  trainload  from  the  mining  localities  of 
Pennsylvania  and  the  Middle  West. » 

Gradually  large  numbers  of  the  old  employees  migrated 
from  the  Middle  West  to  the  West,  the  South  and  South- 
west "where  there  was  an  active  demand  for  experienced 
miners  because  of  the  rapid  development  of  the  coal 
industry.  f'a 

The  motive  forces  of  the  migration  of  coal  miners  from 
the  East  to  the  West  and  Southwest  clearly  appear  from  the 
statistics  of  the  production  of  coal  by  States.  A  glance 
at  the  maps  on  pp.  416  and  4173  shows  that  between  1880 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  p.  22 ;  vol.  7,  pp.  9, 
II.  15-  'Ibid.,  vol.  6,  pp.  666,  667. 

» The  figures  for  these  maps  are  taken  from  the  Report  of  the  United 
States  Geological  Survey  on  Coal,  1910,  p.  14.  States  producing  less 
than  1,000,000  tons  are  not  included. 


The  Coal  Miners 


419 


and  1890  coal  mining  developed  in  Virginia,  Tennessee, 
and  Alabama  in  the  South;  in  Oklahoma  and  Indian  Terri- 
tory in  the  Southwest;  and  in  Colorado,  Montana,  and 
Washington  in  the  West;  that  between  1890  and  1900  new 
fields  were  opened  in  Michigan,  Arkansas,  Texas,  New 
Mexico,  and  Utah;  and  that  while  this  development  was 
going  on  in  the  West  and  Southwest,  production  in  the  old  V 
States  was  also  fast  increasing.  Alt  is  plain  that  the  men  to 
work  in  the  new  mines  had  to  come  from  somewhere.  The 
increase  of  the  population  of  the  United  States,  both  by 
births  and  immigration,  did  not  keep  pace  with  the  growth 
of  coal  production,  as  can  be  seen  from  Table  125  next 
below.  The  progress  of  machine  mining  has  been  slow:  in 
1910  less  than  one  half  (41.74  per  cent)  of  the  total  output 
of  bituminous  coal  was  machine-mined.1  Certainly  the 
native  population  alone  was  insufficient  to  supply  the  in- 
creasing  demand  for  labor.2  The  extent  of  the  demand 
can  be  seen  from  Diagram  XXII.3 

TABLE  125. 

GROWTH  OF  POPULATION  AND  OF  THE  PRODUCTION  OF  COAL,  l88O-I9IO.« 


Year 

Per  capita 
production  t 

Per  cent  of  increase  for  decade 

tons. 

Population 

Coal  production 

i860 

1.5 

1890 

2-5 

25-5 

854 

1900 

3-5 

20.7 

91.0 

1910 

5-5 

21.0 

86.0 

*  United  States  Geological  Survey:  The  Production  of  Coal  in  the  United 
States,  1910,  p.  51. 

•This  is  the  unanimous  testimony  coming  from  all  sections  of  the 
country.  See  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  p.  23;  vol. 
7.  pp.  145,  146,  156,  217,  220. 

*  The  figures  for  the  diagram  are  taken  from  the  compilation  in  the 
Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  p.  5,  Table  5. 

« Mines  and  Quarries,  1902,  p.  669,  Table  6.     United  States  Geological 


420  Immigration  and  Labor 

The  development  of  coal  mining  outside  of  Pennsylvania 
from  1880  to  1889  was  sufficient  to  have  absorbed  every  old 
employee  who  had  been  working  in  the  bituminous  coal 

DIAGRAM  XXII. 


20 
$0 

so 

30 

20 
JO 

$0 

g 

SO 

30 

go 

1° , 

90 
80 
20 

50 

30 
go 

10 
100 

SO 
eo 
20 
o 

JO    00 
CO 

30 


to 


I 


1 


§ 

00 


1 


00 

S  5 

il 


Si 

00 


1 


0\ 

CO 
00 


I 


Penn. 


All  Other 

States 


Middle  West 


South  and 
Southwest 


Penn.  and 
Middle  West 


xxn. 


Number  of  persons  employed  in  bituminous  coal  mines,  1880, 
1889,  and  1907  (thousands) 

mines  of  Pennsylvania  in  1880.  The  development  of 
mining  in  the  South  and  Southwest  since  1889  has  been 
sufficient  to  have  furnished  employment  to  every  wage- 
earner  who  had  been  at  work  in  the  bituminous  coal  mines 


Survey:   Production  of  Coal,  1910,  p.  21. 
vol.  i.,  p.  24. 


XIII.  Census.     Population , 


The  Coal  Miners  421 

of  Pennsylvania  and  the  Middle  West  in  1889.  At  the 
same  time  the  additions  since  1889  to  the  force  employed 
in  the  bituminous  coal  mines  of  Pennsylvania  alone  have 
equaled  the  increase  in  the  operating  forces  of  the  Southern 
and  Southwestern  mines,  while  the  additions  to  the  number 
of  employees  in  the  Middle  West  since  1889  have  exceeded 
the  total  number  of  the  mine  workers  of  Pennsylvania  for 
that  year.  This  growth  of  the  industry  stimulated  a  great 
deal  of  shifting  of  labor  from  one  place  to  another. 

The  main  inducement  for  experienced  miners  to  migrate 
westward  was  the  greatejcjopportunity  for  advancement  in 
the  rapidly  developing  coal  mines  of  the  new  fields.  The 
proportion  of  supervisory  or  better-paid  positions  in  an  old 
coal  mine,  like  in  any  other  establishment,  is  limited.  The 
opening  of  every  new  mine,  however,  creates  new  positions  •• 
for  skilled  and  experienced  miners.  While  the  expansion 
of  mining  operations  in  the  older  States  offered  many 
opportunities  for  advancement  to  old  employees,  still  in 
no  single  concern  could  all  the  employees  be  raised  to  higher 
positions  at  one  time.  The  more  ambitious,  to  whom  the 
road  to  promotion  at  their  old  places  appeared  too  long, 
sought  better  opportunities  in  new  fields.  Their  places 
had  to  be  filled  by  new  immigrants.  There  was  no  "dis-£ 
placement " l  of  the  old  by  the  new  employees;  the  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europeans  did  not  "inundate"  the  oldej: 
employees,  but  merely  filled  the  vacuum  produced  by  the 
continuous  pumping  out  of  the  older  employees.  The 
ultimate  result  of  these  migrations  within  the  coal-mining 
industry  has  been  that  "the  largest  portion  of  those  remain- 
ing, including  the  most  efficient  and  progressive  element,  t 
have,  as  a  result  of  the  expansion  of  the  industry,  secured  \ 
advancement  to  the  more  skilled  and  responsible  positions."2/ 

The  openings  for  the  English-speaking  mine  workers  were 
not  confined  to  mining. 

1  The  misuse  of  the  word  "displacement"  in  the  Reports  of  the  Immi- 
gration Commission  has  been  adverted  to,  in  Chapter  VII. 
*  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  p.  537. 


422  Immigration  and  Labor 

The  period  of  development  in  coal  mining  and  coke  manufacturing 
was  also  a  period  of  great  expansion  in  manufacturing  industries  .  .  . 
so  that  for  the  intelligent  and  ambitious  American,  German,  English, 
Irish,  or  Scotch  employee  there  were  abundant  opportunities  to  secure 
more  pleasant  or  better  paid  work  in  shops  and  factories  near 
home.* 

Moreover,  the  growth  of  mining  communities  has  created 
Business  opportunities  for  alert  Americans  and  English- 
speaking  immigrants.  An  illustration  is  furnished  by  the 
Borough  of  South  Fork,  Cambria  County,  Pennsylvania, 
alias  "Representative  Community  B,"2  where  "the  English- 
speaking  races  seem  to  leave  the  mines  as  soon  as  they 
accumulate  earnings  and  to  enter  mercantile  pursuits  or 
seek  more  remunerative  or  more  pleasant  work  of  other 
kinds.  The  greater  number  of  the  business  and  professional 
men  in  the  town  were  formerly  mine  workers."3 

The  Immigration  Commission  believes  that  this  advance- 
ment  is  "probably  without  direct  connection  with  recent 
^immigration."4    This    is,    however,    a    mistaken    view. 
•..t^'V  Bituminous  coal  is  practically  the  only  product  of  the 
locality."5     It  is  owing  only  to  "the  opening  of  the  new 
mines  and  the  extension  of  the  old  ones"6    that  the  popu- 
>    lation  of  the  "representative  community"  has  grown  from 
1295  in  1890  to  2635  in  1900  and  to  4592  in  1910.     Two_ 
'thirds  of  this  increase  were  due  to  immigration,  not  counting 
\the  native-born  children  of  immigrants.7    And  it  is  ob- 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  p.  335.    The  quotatio*  relates 
to  Pennsylvania,  but  the  same  is  true  of  the  United  States  in  general. 

a  The  description  of  that  community  contains  nothing  of  a  confidential 
nature  that  would  warrant  the  withholding  of  its  name  from  the  public 
in  an  official  report.  Moreover,  the  disguise  is  too  thin  to  be  effective: 
there  is  only  one  incorporated  place  in  the  State  of  Pennsylvania  that 
had  a  population  of  2635  in  1900  (XIII.  Census:  Population,  vol.  in' 
P-  558). 

3  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  p.  563.     See  also 

p-^-  \M>id.,P.  563. 

•  Ibid.,  p.  532.  6  ^d.,  p.  563. 

7  In  1900  the  total  number  of  foreign-born  in  the  borough  was  587; 
in  1908  it  was  estimated  at  1900.  —  Ibid.,  p.  533. 


The  Coal  Miners  423 


viously  ^^^aSE^S^^LS^^^^-^f-^  borough  that 
has  made  room  for  more  professional  and  business  men. 

Speaking  generally,  the  "employees  displaced  as  miners  " 
could  not  "have  gone  into  manufacturing  plants  and  shops 
.  .  .  into  street  railways  and  trolley  service,  or  into  business 
for  themselves,"1  had  not  the  recent  immigrants  furnished 
the  labor  to  do  the  disagreeable  and  dangerous  work  in  the 
manufacturing  plants  and  mines  and  the  passengers  to 
ride  on  the  trolley  cars. 

"The  displaced  employees  did  not  better  their  economic 
condition,"  however,  in  the  Middle  West  —  says  the  Immi-      « 
gration    Commission.     The   "subsequent   history   of   the 
old  employees"  in  that  section  is  recited  as  follows: 

No  extensive  data  are  available  as  to  the  subsequent  history  of  the 
pioneer  miners  in  the  Middle  West  who  were  displaced  by  the  recent 
immigrant.  It  is  well  known,  and  has  already  been  pointed  out,  that 
many  of  them  advanced  in  the  industrial  scale,  becoming  foremen  and 
attaining  other  responsible  positions.  It  has  also  been  mentioned  that 
a  large  number  abandoned  the  occupation  of  miner  for  positions  as  day 
or  shift  men.  Many  also  migrated  and  located  in  other  sections  of  the 
Middle  West  where  hand  mining  continued  to  be  followed,  and  many 
also  moved  to  other  coal-fields,  principally  to  Kansas  and  Oklahoma, 
in  the  Southwest.  The  reports  from  several  communities  also  show  that 
many  of  the  former  miners  who  left  the  industry  entirely  .  .  .  entered 
mercantile,  clerical,  mechanical,  and  other  lines  of  work.  The  reports 
further  unite  in  the  statement,  however,  that  the  displaced  employees 
did  not  better  their  economic  condition.3 

There  are  irreconcilable  contradictions  in  this  "history."  C*^1 
It  seems  inconceivable  that  those  of  the  "displaced"  pick 
miners  who  "advanced  in  the  industrial  scale,  becoming 
foremen  and  attaining  other  .responsible  positions"  (there 
are  alleged  to  have  been  "many  of  them"),  "did  not  better  ^- 
their  economic  condition."     It  is  contrary  to   common 
experience  that  the  "displaced"  miners  "who  left  the  in- 
dustry" to  enter  mercantile  or  mechanical  lines  of  work 
should  not  be  earning  more  as  business  men  or  mechanics 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  p.  426. 
•  Ibid.,  p.  668. 


424  Immigration  and  Labor 

than  they  had  been  earning  with  pick  and  shovel  inside 
of  a  coal  mine.  The  "data  .  .  .  as  to  the  subsequent 
history  of  the  pioneer  miners"  are  admittedly  scarce. 
The  loose  "statement"  of  the  anonymous  "reports"  is 
clearly  sheer  hearsay,  which  deserves  no  place  in  an  official 
report. 

The  Immigration  Commission  attaches  undue  importance 
to  the  social  prejudice  against  "a  Hunkey's  job,"  which  it 
considers  "one  of  the  strongest  forces  toward  the  displace- 
ment of  the  older  employees  either  from  the  industry  or 

.v'from  certain  occupations  within  the  industry."1  The 
Commission  mistakes  here  cause  for  effect.  The  contempt 
for  "  a  Hunkey's  job  "  did  not  exist  so  long  as  the  bulk  of  the 
English-speaking  operatives  were  employed  on  that  grade 
of  work.  Yet,  then  as  now,  the  "tendency"  on  the  part 
of  the  native  American  "to  abandon  the  occupation  of 
coal  digging  and  to  enter  the  better  class  of  positions  about 
the  mines"  must  have  been  "decidedly  marked,"2  when- 
ever an  opportunity  presented  itself.  )  We  further  learn  that^ 
"the  exodus  of  former  operatives  from  the  industry"  was 
stimulated  by  "the  fact  that  there  were  opportunities  to 
secure  work  whichjpaid  as  well  or  better  than  mining,  that 
this  worlTwas  often  more  agreeable  and  less  dangerous."3 
It  was  only  after  their~elevation  (or  "displacement,"  as 
the  Commission  would  have  it)  from  the  ranks  of  coal 
diggers  to  the  more  exalted  station  of  mine  bosses  and  street 
car  conductors  that  they  began  to  look  *down  upon  those 
who  had  succeeded  them.  This  caste  feeling  is  far  too 
general  in  all  climes  and  conditions  of  life  to  be  classed 
</ among  the  effects  of  "recent  immigration." 

Still  more  strained  is  the  argument  that  the  recent 

j,  immigration  "is  preventing  them  [the  English-speaking 
miners]  from  allowing  their  children  to  enter  the  industry. 
The  prosperous  miner  educates  his  children  for  softer- 
handed  work  and  they  have  t^mpve  away  from  Community 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  p.  426. 

'Ibid.,  vol.  7,  p.  221.  *  Ibid.,  vol.  6,  p.  335 


The  Coal  Miners  425 

A  [Shenandoah,  Pa.]  to  find  it.  The  well-to-do  store- 
keeper and  the  professional  man  moves  away  to  find  a 
more  suitable  environment  for  his  growing  children."1 
This  statement  implies  that  but  for  the  recent  immigrant, 
a  prosperous  American  father,  who  has  the  means  to  educate 
his  son  for  "softer-handed  work/'  would  allow  him  to  do 
the  disagreeable  and  dangerous  work  of  a  coal  miner.  Could 
a  "well-to-do  storekeeper"  or  a  professional  man  find 
better  opportunities  for  his  son  in  a  coal-mining  town  like 
Y' Shenandoah  with  a  population  of  25,000,  were  all  the  coal 
miners  men  of  pure  Anglo-Saxon  blood  ? 

The  increasing  consumption  of  coal  by  the  expanding 
American  industries  which  has  drawn  to  pur  coal  mines  the 
great  masses  of  Southern  and  Eastem,European  immigrants, 
has  also  stimulated  the  introduction  of  mining  machinery.  ^ 
The  tendency  of  machinery  is  to  replace  the  skilled  miner 
by  the  unskilled  laborer.  The  old  American,  English, 
Welsh,  and  Irish  miners  were  pick  miners.  The  introduc- 
tion of  mining  machines,  though  gradual,  must  have  dis- 
placed many  of  them  and  forced  them  to  seek  employment 
elsewhere.  To  be  sure,  the  expansion  of  the  coal-mining 
industry  has  been  so  rapid  that  the  displaced  pick  miners 
soon  found  more  remunerative  employment  as  machine 
runners  or  in  supervisory  capacities.  But  this  industrial 
transformation  did  not  proceed  without  social  waste  and 
friction.  When  a  new  labor-saving  machine  is  introduced, 
no  provision  is  made  for  the  men  whose  labor  is  to  be 
dispensed  with.  The  time,  however  short,  spent  in  search 
of  other  employment  may  cause  them  hardship  and  anxiety. 
Meanwhile,  they  see  their  places  taken  by  aliens  speaking 
a  foreign  tongue.  The  impression  is  created  that  it  is  these 
unskilled  foreigners  who  have  displaced  the  English-speak- 
ing miners.  The  pick  miners,  like  labor  in  general,  opposed 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  16,  p.  66 1.  Community 
A  is  situated  in  Schuylkill  County,  Pa.,  and  can  be  identified  by  the 
number  of  its  inhabitants  given  on  p.  663  (XIII.  Census:  Population, 
vol.  iii.,  p.  558). 


426  Immigration  and  Labor 

the  introduction  of  machinery.1     It_  naturally  appeared  to 
them  that  without  the  recent  immigrants  who  were  willing 

^to  work  at  the  machines  the  introduction  of  mining  ma- 
chinery would  have  been  impossible.  These  views*  o£  the 
English-speaking  miners  have  found  their  way  into  the 
reports  of  the  Industrial  Commission2  and  of  the  Immigra- 
tion Commission.3  Mine  operators  who  certainly  know 
the  economic  advantage  of  the  use  of  machinery  have 

/assumed  an  apologetic  attitude  by  throwing  the  blame  upon 

y  the  immigrant,  whose  lack  of  "skill"  makes  the  use  of 
machinery  imperative.4  The  truth  is  that  a  team  of  in- 
experienced, unskilled  Slavs  working  under  one  machine 

^runner  are  more  efficient  than  an  equal  number  of  skilled 
and  experienced  English-speaking  pick  miners. 

The  comparative  efficiency  of  pick  and  machine  mining 
appears  from  the  following  calculation  based  on  the  report 
of  the  Ohio  Chief  Inspector  of  Mines  for  1909.  To  every 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  p.  662. 

a  Reports  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  xxxiv. 

3  "To  some  extent,  the  employment  of  the  recent  immigrant  may 
have  stimulated  the  use  of  mining  machinery,  inasmuch  as  this  machinery 
renders  it  possible  to  employ  in  large  numbers  inexperienced  and  un- 
trained men*  — Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  pp.  423, 
424.  Elsewhere,  under  the  significant  caption  "Deterioration  of 
working  conditions  and  methods  caused  by  employment  of  recent 
immigrants,"  the  Commission  quotes  the  opinions  of  "the  miners  and 
union  officials,"  who  criticize  the  operators,  "who,  to  fill  abnormal 
demands  for  coal,  employed  inexperienced  immigrants  in  such  large 
numbers  that  it  was  impossible  to  teach  them  to  mine  by  approved 
^methods.  .  .  .  The  statement  is  then  made  by  the  old  employee  that 
this  state  of  affairs  .  .  .  leads  to  the  introduction  of  machines. " — 
Ibid.,  p.  670. 

*  "The  operators  claim  that,  owing  to  the  large  percentage  of  immi- 
grants at  work  in  the  mines  who  are  unskilled,  they  are  forced  to  use 
machines  in  order  to  maintain  a  good  quality  of  coal,  because  where  no 
machines  are  used  the  recent  immigrants  'shoot  the  coal  off  the  solid* 
instead  of  properly  undercutting  it,  jind,  with  excessive  charges  of 
powder,  they  thus  produce  a  much  larger  percentage  of  slack  coal  than 
is  produced  when  undercutting  is  done  with  the  machine  or  by  hand. " 
—Ibid.,  p.  650. 


The  Coal  Miners  427 

five  pick  miners  there  was  employed  one  inside  day  hand. 
An  average  day's  work  per  pick  miner  was  2.2  tons  of  lump 
coal,  or  3.3  tons  "run  of  mine."  The  average  daily  pro- 
duction per  inside  man  was  accordingly  1.8  tons  of  lump 
coal  or  2.7  tons  "run  of  mine."  In  machine  mining  there 
were  on  an  average  eight  loaders,  drillers,  and  shooters  to 
each  runner,  and  two  other  inside  day  hands  to  one  runner. 
The  average  quantity  cut  by  each  machine  runner  per  day 
was  twenty-nine  tons  of  lump  coal  or  forty-three  tons  "run 
of  mine."  The  average  daily  production  per  inside  hand 
was  2.6  tons  of  lump  coal  or  3.9  tons  "run  of  mine."1 
The  margin  in  favor  of  machine  mining  was  0.8  tons  of 
lump,  or  1.2  tons  "run  of  mine"  per  inside  man,  which  was 
equivalent  to  a  saviii£L_of  30  per  cent.  Moreover,  with 
pick  mining,  ten  out  of  every  twelve  inside  men  were  skilled 
miners,  whereas  with  machine  mining  only  one  in  every 
eleven  was  a  skilled  man  and  the  other  ten  were  semi- 
skilled day  men  or  unskilled  coal  loaders.  The  average 
price  per  ton  paid  to  contract-miners  is  accordingly  lower 
for  machine  mining  than  for  pick  mining.  In  Illinois  the 
margin  varied  in  1901-1911  from  11.3  to  16.9  cents  per 
ton.2  The  saving  resulting  from  machine  mining  is  esti- 
mated by  an  authority  as  follows: 

At  a  mine  producing  1000  tons  per  day  and  having  a  15  cent  margin 
in  favor  of  machine  mining,  the  gross  saving  would  be  about  $150  a  day, 
or  $30,000  per  year  of  200  days.  .  .  .  The  $30,000  saving  will  pay  for 
the  machine  plant,  installation,  and  cost  of  maintenance,  as  well  as  inter- 
est and  depreciation,  in  about  one  year's  time.  The  advantages  of  coal 
cutting  are:  (i)van  increased  percentage  of  large  coal;  (2) 'the  coal  is 
mined  in  a  firmer  and  better  condition;  (3)  a  more  regular  line  of  face  is 
obtained,  leading  to  more  systematic  timbering;  (4)  increased  safety 
conditions  for  the  miner;  (5)  thin  seams  can  be  profitably  mined;  (6) 
increased  output;  and  (7)  fewer  explosives  are  required  for  getting  down 
the  coal.  3 

1  Thirty- Fifth  Annual  Report  of  the  Chief  Inspector  of  Mines,  Ohio,  pp. 
90,  93.  94,  99,  ioo. 

*  Illinois  Coal  Report,  1911,  p.  121. 

*Coal  and  Coke,  by  Floyd  W.  Parsons,  "The  Mirieral  Industry," 
1909,  pp.  143,  144. 


428  Immigration  and  Labor 

jr  To  imagine  that  the  opposition  of  the  English-speaking 
'miners  could  have  forced  the  mine  operators  to  waive  these 
savings,  is  to  assume  that  without  Slav  and  Italian  immi- 
gration the  laws  of  modern  industrial  evolution  would  have 
been  suspended  in  the  United  States. 

Statistics  show  that  machine  mining  has  made  great 
progress  in  States  with  a  small  percentage  of  Southern  and 
Eastern  European  coal  miners  and  has  been  lagging  behind 
/  in  States  with  a  large  percentage  of  Southern  and  Eastern 
European  coal  miners.  This  fact  stands  out  conspicuously 
in  Diagram  XXIII.1  In  1900,  the  greatest  progress  of 
machine  mining  was  reported  from  Ohio,  while  Vest  Vir- 
ginia was  the  most  backward  State,  though  the  proportion 
of  Southern  and  Eastern  European  miners  in  both  States 
was  the  same.  More  than  four  fifths  of  the  machine 
product  of  Ohio  must  have  been  mined  by  English-speaking 
men.  The  second  rank  in  the  order  of  the  percentages  of 
machine-mined  coal  was  held  by  Kentucky,  where  the 
proportion  of  Southern  and  Eastern  European  miners  was 
negligible.  In  Indiana  likewise  more  than  four  fifths  of  all 
machine-mined  coal  was  produced  by  English-speaking 
mine  workers.  On  the  other  hand,  Pennsylvania  had  four 
times  as  many  Slavs,  Italians,  etc.,  working  in  coal  mines  as 
Ohio,  yet  machine  mining  was  less  advanced  in  Pennsyl- 
vania than  in  Ohio.  In  Pennsylvania  and  Illinois  the 
percentage  of  machine-mined  coal  was  greater  than  the 
percentage  of  Southern  and  Eastern  European  miners. 
Bearing  in  mind  the  greater  average  production  per  man 
where  mining  is  done  by  machines,  it  can  be  clearly  seen 
that  a  great  deal  of  pick  mining  in  those  two  States  must 
have  been  done  by  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans.  The 
occupation  statistics  of  the  census  of  1910  have  as  yet  not 

1  See  Appendix,  Table  XXVI.  The  production  of  bituminous  coal 
in  the  States  shown  in  the  diagram  amounted  in  1910  to  80  per  cent  of  the 
total  for  the  United  States,  and  their  aggregate  production  of  machine- 
mined  coal  for  the  ten-year  period  1900-1909  to  90  per  cent  of  the  total 
output  of  machine-mined  coal  in  the  United  States. 


DIAGRAM  XXIII. 

o 10 ao 30 40 50 60 70  80  90 

I  I  I  LI  I  I  I  M  I  I  I  M  I  I  M  I  I  I  I  I  I  I  I  I  I  I  M  I  J  |  I  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  I  I  \ 


KY. 


IND. 


v////^//s//////Y//////// 
ll  KX 


W.VA. 

i  I  I  I  I   I  I   I  M  I  I  I  I  |  |  |  |  |   |  I 
o  10          20  30  40 


QrS.*£.CV*OP£AN3TQPQPUL*riOH  1910 


Per  cent  of  bituminous  coal  mined  by  machine,  1900  and 

1910,  compared  with  per  cent  ratio  of  Southern  and  East- 

ern European  miners  to  all  miners,  1900;  and  with  per 

cent  ratio  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans 

to  the  total  population,  1910,  for  the  prin- 

cipal States. 


430  Immigration  and  Labor 

been  published.  Still  for  the  purposes  of  the  present  com- 
parison a  fairly  accurate  index  of  the  employment  of 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  in  the  mines  is  furnished 
by  the  ratio  of  each  nationality  to  the  total  population  of 
the  State  for  iQio.1  The  order  of  the  States,  according  to 
the  proportion  of  machine-mined  coal,  has  changed  since 
1900:  Pennsylvania  has  been  outranked  by  Indiana  and 
Illinois  by  West  Virginia.  It  will  be  observed  that  in  each 

t  vof  these  changes  the  State  with  the  lower  proportion  of 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  exhibits  greater  progress 

^  of  machine  mining.  Again,  we  find  Ohio  in  the  lead,  while 
Pennsylvania  with  twice  as  many  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europeans  reports  a  little  over  one  half  as  much  machine- 
mined  coal.  The  second  rank  according  to  the  progress  of 
machine  mining  is  held  by  Kentucky,  where  the  proportion 
of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  is  negligible,  whereas 
^Illinois  with  almost  as  many  Southern  and  Eastern  Euro- 
peans in  proportion  as  Pennsylvania  is  at  the  bottom  of  the 
scale.  West  Virginia,  which  had  been  far  behind  Pennsyl- 
vania in  1900  with  regard  to  the  introdugion  of  machinery, 
in  1910  stood  even  with  Pennsylvania.  For  these  two 
States  we  find  in  the  report  of  the  Immigration  Commission 
the  percentage  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  em- 
ployed in  the  coal  mines  in  1908,  viz.,  in  Pennsylvania,  64.3 
per  cent ;  in  West  Virginia,  28.9  per  cent.  *  The  proportion  of 
machine-mined  coal  was  45  per  cent  in  each  State.  If  the 
introduction  of  machinery  were  stimulated  by  immigration, 
it  might  be  expected  that  the  percentage  of  machine-mined 
coal  in  Pennsylvania  would  be  twice  as  high  as  in  West 
Virginia.  Assuming  that  in  West  Virginia  all  unskilled 
labor  connected  with  machine  mining  was  done  by  recent 
immigrants  and  negroes,  it  can  be  seen  at  a  glance  that  in 

^the  mines  of  Pennsylvania  where  the  Southern  and  Eastern 

1  This  can  be  clearly  seen  from  a_  comparison  of  the  three  series  of 
percentages  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  in  Table  XXVI  of 
the  Appendix. 

*  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  Tables  140  and  143. 


The  Coal  Miners  431 

Europeans  predominate,  a  large  proportion  of  them  must 
have  been  employed  at  pick  mining. x 

There  are  many  factors  of  a  local  character,  such  as  rail- 
way freights,  market  conditions,  the  nature  of  the  coal  -? 
deposit,  etc.,  which  may  produce  variations  in  the  per-  / 
centage  of  machine-mined  coal  for  individual  States.  A 
definite  tendency,  however,  becomes  apparent  if  the  six 
States  are  combined  into  two  groups:  (i)  Ohio,  Kentucky, 
and  Indiana,  and  (2)  Pennsylvania,  West  Virginia,  and 
Illinois.  In  the  first  group  the  percentage  of  machine- 
mined  coal  for  1910  was  higher  than  in  the  second  group. 
In  1900,  Ohio  was  in  advance  of  Pennsylvania,  while  Ken- 
tucky and  Indiana  were  in  advance  of  Illinois  and  West 
Virginia;  taken  as  a  whole,  the  first  group  had  a  larger 
percentage  of  machine-mined  coal  than  the  second.  At  the 
same  time  the  proportion  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Euro- 
peans was  larger  in  the  second  group,  taken  as  a  whole,  than 
in  the  first.  In  1900,  as  well  as  in  1910,  Pennsylvania  had 
a  higher  percentage  than  Ohio,  West  Virginia,  and  Illinois. 

On  the  whole,  then,  it  seems,  the  percentage  of  machine- ^r 
mined  coal  is  higher  in  that  group  which  has  the  lower 
percentage  of  recent  immigrants.  This  conclusion  is  in 
accord  with  economic  conditions :  where  the  supply  of  labor 
grows  slowly,  resort  must  be  had  to  machinery  to  satisfy 
the  rapidly  growing  demand  for  coal. 

1  The  proportion  of  Southern  and  Eastern  European  miners  employed 
at  machine  and  pick  mining  can  be  calculated  as  follows:  An  allowance 
of  30  per  cent  must  be  made  for  the  saving  of  labor  by  machinery.  Of  a 
team  of  nine  working  at  a  mining  machine,  one,  the  runner,  is  an  English- 
speaking  miner.  Exclusive  of  the  runners,  the  mining  of  45  per  cent  of 
the  output  required  the  services  of  (!)  45  (0.70)  -=28  per  cent  of  all  mine 
workers.  The  proportion  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  being 
65  per  cent  of  the  total  employed,  there  was  a  surplus  of  37  per  cent 
equal  to  37  -*-  65  •*  57  per  cent  of  all  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans,  for 
whom  there  was  no  place  at  machine  mining.  In  this  calculation  no 
account  is  taken  of  the  English-speaking  semi-skilled  men  employed  at 
machine  mining.  If  an  allowance  be  made  for  them,  the  percentage  ot 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  who  could  not  have  been  utilized  at 
machine  mining  would  be  still  larger. 


432  Immigration  and  Labor 

The  Immigration  Commission  states  that  in  every  section 
of  the  country  a  period  in  the  development  of  the  coal- 
i/mining  industry  was_reached  when^  the  supply  of  labor, 
§rst,"~of  native  Americans,  and  later  of  English-speaking 
immigrants,  became  inadequate  "  to  satisfy  the  demand  and 
r  recourse  was  necessarily  had  by  the  mining  operators  to 
immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.     Without 
.  the  employment  of  mine  workers  drawn  from  this  class  of 
JK  immigrants,  the  growth  in  the  bituminous  mining  industry 
f    would  have  been  impossible."1    At  the  same  time  the 
Immigration  Commission  believes  that  one  of  the  effects 
of  recent  immigration,  "which  seems  to  be  well  established, 
%r  is  the  decrease  of  the  average  number  of  working  days 
I  annually  "avaflaHte'To'the'  older  employee."2    Thejncon- 
fJJae_^  apparently  escaped  the 


attention  of  the  Commission.  The  evidence  by  which 
the  last-quoted  statement  is  "established"  is  not  given  in 
the  report  of  the  Commission,  beyond  the  bare  "  allegation  " 
of  "the  older  miners"  of  Illinois  that  "even  under  normal 
industrial  conditions  there  are  two  miners  for  every  place 
that  offers  steady  work  for  one  miner.  "J 

The  fact  is,  as  noted  by  the  Commission,  that  coal  mining 
is  a  seasonal  trade.3  The  demand  is  greatest  in  the  fall 
and  winter,  and  declines  with  warm  weather.  The  mine 
operators  run  their  mines  in  accordance  with  market 
Conditions,  as  can  be  seen  from  Diagram  XXIV.4  In  this 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  p.  423.  See  also  pp. 
23,  24,  260,  661  ;  vol.  7,  pp.  216-217;  in  the  South  "the  demand  for  labor 
has  outgrown  the  supply";  vol.  16,  pp.  592,  655. 

'Ibid.,  vol.  6,  p.  668.  s  Ibid.,  vol.  6,  pp.  97,  668. 

«  Based  on  Thirteenth  Annual  Coal  Report,  Illinois,  1911,  pp.  54-55. 

JThe  Commission  quotes,  in  the  same  connection  (vol  vi.,  p.  669), 
"the  conviction  on  the  part  of  natives  that  a  preference  is  shown  for  the 
immigrants  in  the  distribution  of  work.  "  If  the  statistics  of  the  Immi- 
gration Commission  may  be  trusted,  they  disprove  this  conviction  on 
the  part  of  the  natives.  The  figures  which  are  given  in  Table  343  (p. 
649)  of  the  same  volume,  relate  to  the  Middle  West,  where  that  "con- 
viction" is  said  to  prevail.  The  native  and  Southern  and  Eastern 


The  Coal  Miners 

DIAGRAM  XXIV. 


433 


Tons 


00,0001 
_  7600,000 
_  7200,000 
.  6,500,000 
_  6J*00,000 

op.ooq 

600.000 
200.000 
_4800000 
.440QOOC 


JULY        AUG.      SEP.        OCT.       NOV.       DEC.      JAN.       FEB.      MAR.      APR.      MAY       JUNE 

XXIV.    Coal  production  by  months  in  Illinois,  1906-1910. 

European  miners  were  distributed  by  the  number  of  months  worked 
in  1907  as  follows: 


Per  ce 

at  working 

Months 

Native- 
born 

Italians,  Lithuanians, 
and  Poles 

J2  .            

182 

I  1 

68.2 

AQ  7 

IOO.O 

O67 

It  must  be  understood,  however,  that  these  statistics  are  of  as  little 
value  as  the  opinions  of  the  few  "old  miners"  quoted  by  the  Immigra- 
tion Commission.  The  total  number  of  native  miners  included  in  its 
"study  of  households"  was  only  371  for  all  bituminous  mines  in  the 
United  States  and  79  for  all  anthracite  mines.  (Ibid.,  vol.  6,  p.  97; 
vol.  16,  p.  619.)  The  number  is  too  small  to  serve  as  a  basis  for  any 


434  Immigration  and  Labor 

respect  the  mine  operators  do  not  differ  from  other  entre- 
preneurs. There  is  nothing  to  prevent  a  manufacturer  of 
awnings  from  distributing  the  work  of  his  establishment 
evenly  over  the  whole  year;  yet  he  prefers  to  manufacture 
them  when  there  is  an  immediate  demand  for  them.  An 
even  distribution  of  mining  operations  over  the  whole 
year  would  necessitate  an  outlay  for  wages  and  supplies, 
and  a  permanent  investment  for  additional  storage  facilities. 
/Such  an  additional  investment  would  be  prohibitive  for 
\many  of  the  smaller  operators,  while  the  larger  ones  could 

v  gain  no  advantage  from  it,  since  competition  would  not 
permit  them  to  shift  the  interest  to  the  consumer. 

So  long  as  the  mines  run  full  time  at  one  season  and  part 
time  at  others,  unemployment  is  inevitable.  The  difference 
between  coal  mining  and  other  industries  is  only  that, 
instead  of  discharging  a  portion  of  the  force  and  keeping 
the  rest  fully  employed,  the  coal  operator  retains  the  full 

v  force  in  his  employ,  but  keeps  them  all  on  part  time.-  There 
are  several  economic  reasons  for  this  system.  In  the  first 
place  the  operator  wants  to  keep  his  full  force  always  ready 
on  call.  Coal  mines  are,  as  a  rule,  not  located  in  great 
urban"  centres  where  there  is  at  all  times  an  available 
supply  of  men  seeking  employment.  Chief  among  the 
contributory  causes  is  the  real  estate  interest  of  the  mining 
company.  Every  operator  who  opens  a  new  mine  in  an 
unsettled  locality  must  provide  houses  for  his  employees. 
After  having  invested  in  workmen's  dwellings,  the  mine 
operator  is  interested  in  keeping  them  occupied.  To  lay 
off  a  part  of  his  employees  during  the  summer  months  would 
involve  a  loss  of  rent,  as  they  would  leave  in  order  to  seek 
employment  elsewhere.  Where  the  mining  company  is  also 
running  a  general  store  for  its  employees,  it  wants  to  retain 

conclusions.  The  greatest  variation  between  the  native  and  foreign- 
born  appears  in  the  percentage  of  bituminous  coal  miners  employed 
six  months  and  over,  viz.,  82.2  for  the  native  and  88.8  for  the  foreign- 
bora  (ibid.,  vol.  6,  p.  97).  The  difference  of  6.6  per  cent  represents 
only  twenty-three  native  workers  scattered  all  over  the  United  States. 


The  Coal  Miners  435 

them  as  customers.  While  the  mine  operators  are  guided 
in  their  policy  by  business  considerations,  rather  than  by 
philanthropy,  the  mine  workers  as  a  class  have  no  ground 
for  complaint  against  this  policy,  so  long  as  coal  mining 
remains  a  seasonal  trade.  The  other  alternative  would  be 

v  full  employment  for  some  and  complete  idleness  and  want 
for  the  others. 

Inasmuch  as  the  demand  for  coal  fluctuates  from  year 

Vto  year,  it  is  inevitable  that  when  the  demand  suffers  a 
temporary  decline,  there  should  not  be  enough  work  to 
give  full  time  employment  to  all  the  men  who  were  needed 
during  the  previous  season  of  maximum  activity.  An 
illustration  of  these  fluctuations  can  be  seen  in  Diagram 
XXIV.  This  is  the  basis  of  the  complaint  of  the  miners 
that  too  rapid  a  pace  of  development  eventually  pleads  to 
undef-employment. x  These  cyclical  variations,  however, 
,are  not  peculiar  to  coal  mining  alone,  but  are  incidents  of 
the  modern  industrial  development  in  all  lines  of  production. 
In  fact  the  fluctuations  in  the  demand  for  coal  are  merely 
the  reflections  of  the  fluctuations  in  the  industrial  field  as 
a  whole.  That  they  are  not  the  product  of  immigration, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  they  run  parallel  with  the  fluctuations 
of  immigration,  has  been  shown  in  Chapter  VI.  (See  Dia- 
gram  X.) 

The  fluctuating  character  of  the  coal-mining  industry 
produces  a  migratory  type  of  mine  worker.  To  the  old 
employee,  however,  who  is  permanently  working  at  one 
mine,  these  migratory  applicants  for  work  naturally  appear 
as  one  of  the  causes  of  fluctuation  in  the  opportunities  for 
employment.  The  Immigration  Commission  is  voicing 
the  complaint  of  "the  older  employee  to  the  effect  that  the 

k  recent  immigrants  being  largely  unmarried  and  at  the  same 

f  time,  migratory  in  their  habits,  move  readily  from  one 
locality  to  another,  always  seeking  the  community  where 
there  is  a  demand  for  labor  and  thus  cause^in  .numerous 
instances,  an  oversupply  of  labor,  which  reacts  to  the  injury 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  p.  669. 


436  Immigration  and  Labor 

of  the  employees  permanently  working  and  living  in  the 
locality  affected."1    The  recent  immigrants  accordingly 

^cause  an  oversupply  of  labor  by  seeking  a  place  "where 
there  is  a  demand  for  labor, "  whereas  if  they  stayed  where 
there  is  no  demand  for  their  labor  there  would  supposedly 
be  no  oversupply  of  labor.  But  what  of  "the  older  em- 
ployees" who  are  permanently  living  in  the  communities 
where  there  is  no  demand  for  the  labor  of  the  migratory 
immigrants?  Might  they  not  regard  it  as  an  "injury" 
to  themselves  if  the  immigrants  resolved  to  abandon  their 
•  migratory  habits  and  stay  where  there  is  no  demand  for 
them?  The  oldest  inhabitants  of  a  mining  town  are 
naturally  inclined  to  view  every  question  from  the  angle  of 
their  local  interests.  But  their  criterion  need  not  be  gener- 
ally accepted  as  representative  of  the  interests  of  labor  at 
large. 
/Complaints  have  often  been  made  that,  apart  from  the 

g/fluctuations  in  the  demand  for  coal,  under-employment 

\in  the  anthracite  mines  is  the  result  of  a  deliberate 
pn  the  part  of  the  operators  to  employ  a  larger  force  than 
might  be  required  when  the  mines  run  at  full  capacity.2 
There  was  a  good  foundation  for  this  complaint  in  the  past. 
In  the  '70*8,  after  the  breakdown  of  the  union  of  anthracite 
coal  miners,  the  coal  companies  engaged  a  larger  force 
which  resulted  in  the  curtailment  of  the  average  production 
per  man.  This  was,  however,  in  the  days  of  British,  Irish, 
and  German  immigration.  During  the  last  ten  years,  i.  e., 

V  since  the  beginning  of  the  new  immigration,  the  average 
annual  production  per  man  has  been  fast  increasing. 

The  following  table  shows  an  increase  of  the  average 
annual  number  employed  from  44,000  in  1870-1874  to 
68,000  in  1875-1879,  while  the  average  annual  output 
increased  only  10  per  cent.  The  expansion  of  the  busi- 
ness obviously  did  not  call  for  an  increase  of  55  per  cent 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission^  vol.  6,  p.  669. 
a  Reports  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  p.  405.    Peter  Roberts, 
The  Anthracite  Coal  Industry,  pp.  126-127. 


The  Coal  Miners 


437 


in  the  number  of  employees.  As  a  result  the  average 
tonnage  per  emplgyeejieclined  28  per  cent.  It  rose  again 
during  the  first  half  of  the  '8o's  still  remaining  20  per  cent 


TABLE  126. 

NUMBER    OF    WAGE-EARNERS    EMPLOYED    IN   ANTHRACITE   COAL    MINES, 
AND  PRODUCTION  OF  COAL  BY  FIVE-YEAR  PERIODS,  1870-1909. 


Average  annual  production2 

Average   annual 

(long  tons) 

Period 

(thousands) 

Total  millions 

Per  employee 

1870-1874 
1875-1879 

n 

2O 
22 

448 
322 

1880-1884 

85 

31 

361 

1885-1889 

no 

38 

342 

1890-1894 

130 

46 

350 

1895-1899 

145 

50 

343 

1900-1904 

151 

56 

372 

1905-1909 

171 

71 

417 

below  the  average  of  1870-1874.  It  declined  again  during 
the  second  half  of  the  '8o's  and  remained  stationary  until 
1900.  Since  that  time  a  marked  improvement  is  notice- 
able. The  annual  average  per  employee  in  1900-1904  was 
higher  than  in  1880-1884,  and  in  1905-1909  it  came  within 
7  per  cent  of  the  average  of  1870-1874.  If  the  comparison 
is  carried  back  to  the  first  half  of  the  *8o's,  when  the  English- 
speaking  mine  workers  were  given  more  days  per  man  than 
ever  since  the  defeat  of  the  strike  of  1875  up  to  1900,  it 
appears  that  in  1905-1909,  during  the  height  of  Southern  • 
and  Eastern  European  immigration,  the  average  mine 
worker  was  given  15.5  per  cent  more  work  than  at  the  time 
the  Slav  and  Italian  employees  in  the  anthracite 
mines  were  a  negligible  quantity.  This  means  that  the 

« See  Appendix,  Table  XXVIII. 

3  Computed  from  the  Report  of  the  United  States  Geological  Survey: 
The  Production  of  Coal,  1910,  pp.  189-190. 


438  Immigration  and  Labor 

recent  immigrant  labor  supply  has  been  smaller  in  propor- 
tion to  the  demagdjorjaborjnjg^  the  supply 
of  mine  workers  from  Northern  and  Western  Europe  thirty 
years  ago. 

As  stated  above,  the  reports  of  the  Immigration  Com- 
mission for  every  district  concur  in  that  the  native  labor 
'/supply  wasjnadequate  ioj:Jiie._QperatiQn.  of  the  mines_f rom 
the  very  beginning,  that  the  supply  of  immigrants  from  the 
-r,  ^British  Isles  and  Germany  soon  also  proved  insufficient, 
**/    Jand  that  the  mine  operators  from  remoter  districts  were 
/  bidding  in  the  Eastern  labor  market  for  immigrants  of 
^  every  nationality  willing  to  work  in  the  Western  mines. 
If  it  is  true  that  the  demand  for  labor  exceeded  the  avail- 
able supply,  it  necessarily  follows  that  wages  must  have 
(     risen.     That  such  has  been  the  fact  is  not  denied  by  the 
Immigration  Commission.     It  s'eeks,  however,  to  qualify 
it  in  accordance  with  its  preconceived  ideas  about  the 
immigrant.     We  are  told  that  in  Pennsylvania  "the  com- 
panies were  not  compelled  as  a  result  of  agitation  or  protest 
to  increase  wages  ...  in  order  to  hold  the  native  and 
former  workmen,  since  they  were  able  to  fill  their  places 
.  .  .  with  recent  immigrants  who  were  content  with  the 
wages  .  .  .  which  prevailed  in  the  bituminous   regions. 
//  is  true  that  wages  have  risen  in  the  industry,  but  as  a  rule 
only  to  meet  the  competition  of  other  industries  which  use 
unskilled  labor."1 

.     Thus    "the    companies    were    not    compelled  ...  to 
*pncrease  wages,"  because  the  recent  immigrants   "were 
^{content"  with  the  prevailing  wages,   and  yet  somehow 
wages  have  risen. "     It  might  be  inferred  that  the  com- 
panies  voluntarily   increased    wages    though    the    recent 
immigrants  did  not  ask  for  it,  were  it  not  for  the  concluding 
statement  that  the  raise  was  made  "  to  meet  the  competition 
of  other  industries  which  use  unskilled  labor. "  •  Apparently 
then  in  those  "other  industries"  wages  were  also  raised, 
and  the  recent  immigrants,  though  "content"  with  lower 
1  Reports  oj  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  8,  p.  424. 


The  Coal  Miners  439 

wages  in  coal  mines,  were  equally  content  to  quit  the  mines 

and  accept  higher  wages  in  other  industries.     The  most 

important  of  those  industries  in  Pennsylvania  is  the  iron 

and  steel  industry,  in  which  most  of  the  unskilled  laborers 

are  also  recent  immigrants.     So  it  would  seem  that  in  order 

to  hold  these  new  employees  the  iron  and  steel  companies 

,   were  compelled  to  increase  wages,  and  the  coal  companies 

-   in  order  to  hold  their  own  recent  immigrants  had  to  follow 

suit. 

An  index  of  the  increase  in  the  earnings  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania coal  miners  since  the  beginning  of  the  "new  immigra- 
tion" is  furnished  by  the  average  wages  per  ton  in  the  an- 
thracite coal  mines  at  the  XI.  and  XIII.  Censuses,  which 
increased  from  83  cents  in  1889  to  $1.14  in  1909,  i.  e.,  37.3 
per  cent.  At  the  same  time  the  progress  in  the  use  of 
mechanical  power  raised  the  average  output  per  wage- 
earner.1 

In  the  unionized  bituminous  coal  mines  of  the  Pitts- 
burgh district  the  scale  is  agreed  upon  at  joint  conferences 
held  biennially  since  1898  between  the  operators  and  the 
United  Mine  Workers.  This  is  the  period  of  the  great 
influx  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  into  the  coal 
mines  of  the  Pittsburgh  district.  Table  127  shows  sub- 
stantial increases^kr  the  scale  for  undercutting  by  machine 
and  day-occupations,  in  which  English-speaking  mine 
workers  are  employed,  as  well  as  for  loading  which  is 
the  work  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans,  and  for 
pick  mining,  at  which  men  of  all  races  are  employed.  In 
4  other  words,  the  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  have 
had  the  same  measure  of  success  in  bargaining  for  wages  as 
the  English-speaking  employees. 

While  wages  have  increased,  the  hours  of  labor  have 
been  reduced  from  ten  to  eight.  Moreover,  "many  kinds 
of  work,  such  as  entry  cutting,  room  turning,  removing 
clay,  etc.,  for  which  formerly  nothing  was  paid,  now  have 
a  regular  scale.  This  'dead  work/  in  a  mine  employing 

1  XIII.  Census,  vol.  xi.,  Mines  and  Quarries,  pp.  188,  189. 


(j 


440 


Immigration  and  Labor 


one  hundred  and  fifty  men,  would  add  about  $i  .50  per  week 
to  the  wages  of  each  of  them.  It  means  an  addition  of 
about  ten  per  cent  to  a  miner's  pay. " x 

TABLE  127. 

UNION  SCALE  OF  WAGES  IN  BITUMINOUS  COAL  MINES,  1898-1908. a 


Occupation 

1898-1900 

1906-1908 

Increase 
per  cent 

Per  ton 
$0.66 

Per  ton 
$0.90 

36.4 

Air  Machines. 
Undercutting  in  rooms  

.125 

.1708 

36.6 

f 
.36 

.456 

26.7 

Electric  Machines. 
Undercutting     .      .       

.08 

.11 

37.5 

Loading  

.36 

•47 

3O.6 

Inside  Day  Work. 
Tracklayers,  bottom  cagers,  drivers, 
trip    riders,    water   and    machine 
haulers,  and  timbermen  

Per  day 

I.QO 

Per  day 
2.56 

4O.O 

Pi  pemen  for  compressed  air  plants.  .  . 
All  other  inside  labor  

1.84 
1.75 

2.50 

2.-*6 

30-4 
74.0 

Trappers  (boys)  

.75 

I.I-z 

SO.7 

The  advances  in  the  scale  of  wages  paid  to  various 
classes  of  employees  in  non-unionized  mines  of  Pennsyl- 
vania3 are  shown  in  Table  128,  condensed  from  the  report 
of  the  Immigration  Commission. 

J    Wages  for  all  grades  of  employment  have  increased 

since  1895.     The  rate  of  increase  for  common  laborers, 

,  who  are  practically  all  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans, 

v  is  higher  than  for  machine  bosses,  who  are  Americans  or 

English-speaking  foreigners. 

The  report  of  the  Immigration  Commission  contains 
statistics  of  average  daily  earnings  for  79,575  mine  workers 
classified  by  race  and  nativity.  As  there  is  no  classification 
of  each  racial  group  by  occupation,  the  elaborate  averages 

1  Leiserson,  loc.  cit.t  p.  319.  »  Ibid.,  p.  320. 

3  That  the  mines  are  non-unionized  appears  from  the  fact  that  they 
are  running  on  a  ten-hour  basis. 


The  Coal  Miners 


441 


TABLE  128. 

WAGE  SCALE  OF  EMPLOYEES  IN  THE  COAL  MINES  OF  ONE  STEEL  COMPANY 
IN  PENNSYLVANIA,  1 895-1908. x 


Occupations 

Daily  wages 

Increase  per 
cent 

1895 

1908 

Machine  boss          .  . 

$2.50 
•53 
•50 

.42 

•31 
•71 

•75 
•55 
.62 

•25 
•25 

.21 
.20 

.07 
•25 

•°3 

.06 

.00 

.70 

$3.20 
2.65 
2.50 
2.50 

2.40 

2.40 
2.40 
2.25 

2.2O 
2.IO 
2.OO 
1-95 

l.8o 
1-55 
145 
145 
1-35 

1.20 
.90 

28.O 
66.7 

66.7 
76.1 
83.2 
404 
38.2 
45-2 
35-8 
68.0 
60.0 
61.2 
50.0 

44-9 
16.0 
40.8 
27.4 

2O.O 
28.6 

Boss  driver            

Team  driver  

Sheer  (mule) 

Motorman  

Trip  rider  

Carpenter 

Coupler                           .... 

Tipple  engineer  

Tipple  man  

Switchman  

Oiler  (dilly  road) 

Patcher                       

Traooer  (bov)  . 

and  per  1000  ratios  computed  from  "80  or  more  males 
reporting,"  are  of  no  value  for  comparative  purposes. 
The  fact  that  the  Mexican  earns  $2.44  per  day,  whereas 
the  American  of  native  parentage  earns  only  $2.3i,2  does 
not  mean  that  the  Mexican  has  a  higher  standard  of  living 
and  therefore  " insists"  upon  a  higher  wage,  whereas  the 
American,  with  his  lower  standard  of  living,  is  "content "  to 
accept  a  lower  wage._\The  higher  average  of  the  Mexican 
"X  fs  simply  the  result  of  a  different  distribution  of  the  Mexicans 
by  locality  and  grade  of  work.  A  selection  of  race  groups 
graded  according  to  percentage  earning  each  specified 
amount  per  day  is  presented  in  Table  129.  It  clearly 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  8,  Table  322. 
3  Ibid.,  vol.  6,  p,  50. 


442 


Immigration  and  Labor 


shows  that  the  immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
-  Europe  are  often  earning  more  than  native  Americans  of 
native  stock  and  English-speaking  immigrants. 

TABLE  129. 

PER  CENT  OF   ADULT  BITUMINOUS  COAL   MINE   WORKERS    OF   SELECTED 
RACES  EARNING  EACH  SPECIFIED  AMOUNT  PER  DAY,  BY  LOCALITY. x 


Earning  $2.00  per  day  and  over. 

Earning  $3.00  per  day  and  over. 

Rank 

Locality  and  race 

Per 

cent 

Rank 

Locality  and  race 

Per 
cent 

I 

2 

3 
4 
5 
6 

8 

I 

2 

3 
4 

I 

2 

3 

4 

I 

2 

Middle  West: 
Russian 

95-0 
94-3 
90.8 
89.1 

87.2 
86.2 
84-3 
83.7 

76.5 
76.4 

73-3 
70.1 

82.9 

73-1 
67.9 
65.8 

97.2 
96.1 

I 
2 

3 
4 
5 
6 

87 
9 

10 

i 

2 

I 

2 

I 

2 

3 

4 

Middle  West: 
Croatian  .... 

69.9 
46.3 

45-0 
41.7 
37-9 
36.9 
31-3 
27.4 
26.2 
25.1 

13-5 

7-7 

19.4 
12.9 

56.8 
38.3 
31-6 
18.9 

Croatian 

South  Italian  

South  Italian  

Scotch 

English 

White  of  native  father. 
Welsh  

Russian  

Scotch  

North  Italian 

Irish 

Irish                

Welsh 

Pennsylvania: 
Slovenian  

Slovak  

White  of  native  father. 

Pennsylvania: 
Lithuanian  .  . 

Russian  

White  of  native  father. 
South: 
Slovak  

White  of  native  father  . 
South: 
Slovak 

Polish  

White  of  native  father. 
Southwest: 
Lithuanian  

White  of  native  father. 

Southwest: 

Slovenian  

South  Italian  

German 

White  of  native  father. 

White  of  native  father. 

Comparable  data  on  the  earnings  of  employees  engaged 
in  the  same  class  of  work  are  available  only  for  West 
Virginia.  The  average  earnings  of  pick-miners  for  one 
month  were  as  follows:  American,  white,  $78.18;  Magyar 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  Tables  34-35,  pp. 
54-56. 


The  Coal  Miners  443 

and  Slovak,  $76.68;  South  Italian,  $69.11.*  There  is  no 
substantial  difference  between  the  Magyar  and  Slovaks,  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  white  Americans,  on  the  other;  their 
wages  averaged  about  $3.00  a  day.  The  earnings  of  the 
Italians  were  lower,  but  this  may  have  been  due  to 
the  fact  that  some  of  them  did  not  work  every  day  in  the 
month.2 

The  conclusion  of  the  Commission  with  regard  to  the^ 
Virginia  and  West  Virginia  coal  fields  is  that  "although  it 
is  not  clear  that  the  employment  of  the  immigrant  has 
reduced  wages  .  .  .  it  is  obvious  that  if  immigrant  labor 
had  not  been  available  either  a  much  higher  wage  would 
have  been  paid,  more  labor-saving  devices  used,  or  less 
development  would  have  been  possible.  "3  In  other  words, 
wages  have  not  been  reduced,  but  had  there  been  no  immi- 
grants on  hand,  either  wages  would  have  been  higher, 
or  they  would  not  have  been  higher.  The  conclusion  is 
indisputable. 

The  Immigration  Commission  holds  the  recent  immi- 
grants responsible  for  the  evils  of  the  company  houses  and 
the  company  stores.  It  is  the  usual  method  of  reasoning: 
the  company  house  and  the  company  store  exist  only 
V  because  the  recent  immigrants  "consent"  to  accept  them.4 
This  is  a  consistent  application  of  the  theory  of  "freedom  of 
contract":  wages  are  low,  because  wage-earners  "consent" 
to  accept  low  wages;  hours  of  labor  are  long,  because 
laborers  "consent"  to  work  long  hours;  factories  are  un- 
sanitary, because  operatives  "consent"  to  work  in  unsani- 
tary factories.  Every  problem  involved  in  the  relation 
between  labor  and  capital  finds  an  easy  solution  in  this 
philosophy. 

The  fact  is  that  the  real  estate  and  the  mercantile  end  of 
a  mining  company's  business  are  often  no  less  important, 
as  sources  of  income,  than  the  mine.  There  are  mining 
companies  whose  sales  of  coal  do  not  cover  their  operating 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  p.  202.  2  Ibid. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  223.  Ibid.,  pp.  659,  666. 


444  Immigration  and  Labor 

expenses,  but  the  renting  of  houses  to  employees  and  the 
profits  of  the  commissary  store  yield  enough  to  pay  divi- 
dends on  the  entire  investment.  This  system  is  much  older 
than  immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe. 

An  item  in  the  Pottsville  Miners'  Journal  for  January,  1850,  states 
that  there  were  42,000  houses  rented  by  the  operators  in  the  anthracite 
coal  fields.  From  the  earliest  records  of  mining,  operators  have  erected 
abodes  for  their  employees,  and  the  practice  has  been  continued  until 
very  recent  times  among  all  the  companies.1 

Company  houses  are  as  usual  in  the  South,  where  the 
white  miners  are  mostly  of  old  American  stock,  as  in  those 
fields  where  recent  immigrants  predominate. 

The  company  store  has  also  had  a  long  history. 

The  Pottsville  Miners'  Journal  states  that  in  1848  .  .  .  men  worked 
for  $3.50  a  week  and  took  that  out  in  orders.  ...  In  1850,  the  laborer 
got  from  60  cents  to  65  cents  a  day  and  the  miner  from  80  cents  to  90 
cents.  These  were  low  wages  but  they  were  actually  lower  than  the 
amounts  specified,  for  the  men  were  not  paid  in  money.  They  had  to 
take  their  earnings  out  in  goods  which  made  a  difference  of  from  15  to 
20  per  cent  against  the  wage-earner.3 

Many  and  persistent  attempts  have  been  made  to  do  away  with  this 
evil,  all  of  which  so  far  have  come  short  of  their  object.  It  was  an 
issue  of  the  Bates  strike  of  1849.  The  Workingmen's  Benevolent 
Association  of  1868-75  attempted  to  remove  it.  It  was  one  of  the 
planks  in  the  platform  of  the  Knights  of  Labor  who  flourished  in  the 
Middle  and  Southern  coal  fields  in  1886-88.  And  the  labor  organiza- 
tion which  now  flourishes  in  the  anthracite  coal  fields  has  undertaken  to 
correct  this  evil.  "'What  the  employees  could  not  do  by  labor  unions 
representatives  have  tried  to  do  by  legislative  enactment.  In 
June,  1 88 1,  a  law  was  passed  to  enforce  payment  in  lawful  money  of 
the  United  States  or  "any  order  or  other  paper  whatsoever,  redeemable 
for  its  face  value  in  lawful  money  of  the  United  States."  This  law 
was  declared  unconstitutional.  ...  In  June,  1891,  another  act  was 
passed,  making  it  unlawful  for  "any  mining  or  manufacturing  corpora- 
tion of  the  commonwealth,  or  the  officers  or  stockholders  of  any  such 
corporation,  to  engage  in  or  carry  on  any  store  known  as  company 
store."  .  .  .  Another  attempt  was  made  at  the  recommendation  of 
an  investigating  committee  in  1897  to  abolish  this  evil.  All  these 

1  Peter  Roberts:   The  Anthracite  Coaljndustry,  p.  130. 
•  Ibid.,  p.  109. 


The  Coal  Miners  445 

legislative  actaJhayfi  mme  shortj^  their  objects.  The  company  store 
still  flourishes.  .  .  .  Their  number  is  not  as  large  as  they  once  were; 
they  are  gradually  dying  out,  but  the  institution  dies  hard.1 

In  West  Virginia  "every  mining  company  has  a  company 
store,  and  the  operatives  are  compelled  to  deal  in  the 
company  store,  because  they  are  paid  only  once  a  month, 
but  may  between  pay-days  obtain  trading  scrip  which  is 
good  only  at  the  company  stores."2     Nearly  one  half  (46 
per  cent)  of  all  mine  workers  in  West  Virginia  are  native  y 
white  Americans,  and  only  30  per  cent  are  immigrants  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.3     It  is  clear  that  the  recent^f 
immigrant  is  no  more  responsible  for  the  company  store 
than  the  native  American  miner. 

It  is  a  fair  conclusion  from  all  available  facts  that  the 
terms  of  employment  in  the  coal  mines  at  present  are  in  no 
respect  less  favorable  to  the  mine  Worker,  and  that  the 
wages  are  higher,  than  in  the  past,  when  the  bulk  of  the 
mine  workers  were  native  Americans  or  immigrants  from 
Northern  and  Western  Europe. 

The  ability  of  the  wage-earner  to  influence  the  terms  of  ^ 
employment  in  large-scale  industry  finds  full  expression  I 
only  in  collective  bargaining.     The  history  of  labor  unions  / 
in  the  bituminous  coal-mining  industry,  according  to  the 
Immigration  Commission's  version,  has  been  a  constant 
struggle  on  the  part  of  the  English-speaking  mine  workers 
to  organize  the  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  and  to 
hold  them  in  line. 

( 

In  the  Pennsylvania  bituminous  mining  area  the  entire  period  from  , 
1870  to  1894  was  marked  by  a  series  of  labor  dissensions  and  strikes, 
each  of  which  left  the  labor  organizations  in  a  weaker  condition  than  did 
its  predecessor,  for  the  reason  that  the  older  employees,  who  were  the 
leaders  in  the  movement  for  higher  wages  and  better  working  conditions, 
finding  themselves  unable  to  control  the  conditions  imposed  by  the 
increasing  employment  of  recent  immigrants,  and  finally  realizing  that  it 

1  Peter  Roberts  :  The  Anthracite  Coal  Industry,  pp.  129-130. 
•  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  7,  p.  201. 
3  Ibid.,  p.  161. 


446  Immigration  and  Labor 

was  impossible  to  control  the  incoming  supply  of  immigrant  labor, 
abandoned  the  Pennsylvania  mines  and  sought  similar  employment  in 
other  bituminous  localities  where  the  pressure  of  competition  of  recent 
immigrants  was  not  so  strong.  .  .  .  Practically,  the  same  situation 
with  the  same  results  was  experienced  in  the  mines  of  West  Virginia. 
Recent  immigrants  did  not  enter  the  mines  of  that  State  in  large  num- 
bers .  .  .  until  after  the  year  1890.  The  competition  was  soon  felt, 
however,  and  the  significance  of  their  presence  revealed  by  the  strikes 
which  occurred  in  the  Fairmont,  Elk  Garden,  and  other  fields  in  the 
years  1894  and  1895.  Natives  and  older  immigrant  employees  left 
the  mines,  as  they  had  done  in  Pennsylvania,  thus  creating  vacancies 
which  were  filled  by  the  employment  of  additional  numbers  of  recent 
immigrants,  who  reduced  the  strength  of  the  labor  organizations.  The 
*  rapid  expansion  of  the  mining  operations  after  1894  also  brought  into 
the  mining  fields  a  constantly  growing  number  of  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europeans,  who  completely  inundated  the  older  employees  and  uncon- 
sciously, but_effectually,  Demoralized  the  labor  unions  and  put  aTstop  to 
anyeffbrts  toward  organization.  .  .  .  |In  the  Middle  West]  during  the 
past  ten  years  .  .  .  although  the  labor  unions  have  largely  maintained 
their  strength,  conditions  have  changed  and  the  preservation  of  the 
standards  of  the  organization  has  been  a  matter  of  the  greatest  difficulty. 
Mining  operations  have  undergone  a  great  expansion,  and  recourse  has 
been  had  to  races  of  recent  immigration  in  greater  and  greater  numbers. 
These  newcomers  have  entered  the  labor  organizations  principally 
because  they  have  considered  it  a  necessary  step  preliminary  to  securing 

<work  in  the  mines,  and  not  because  they  have  had  any  sympathy  or 
interest  in  the  labor-union  program.  They  have  also  manifested  com- 
paratively little  activity  in  its  behalf. l 


The  preceding  summary  abounds  in  errors  of  fact]  which 
produce  a  distorted  view  of  the  history  oFTrade-unionism  in 
the  bituminous  coal-mining  industry.  The  cardinal  fact 
of  that  history  is  that  so  long  as  the  English-speaking 
mine  workers  were  in  the  majority,  their  organizations  were 
ephemeral  and  their  strikes  mostly  unsuccessful;  it  is  only 
since  the  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans 'have  become  an 
important  factor  in  the  coal  mines  that  the  miners*  organi- 
zation has  gained  strength.  The  growth  of  the  United 
Mine  Workers  of  America  appears  from  Table  130  next 
following.  Whereas  in  1890  scarcely  15  per  cent  of  all 
mine  workers  in  the  United  States  were  affiliated  with 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I ,  p.  535. 


The  Coal  Miners  447 

labor  unions,  in  1904  the  proportion  of  organized  mine 
workers  exceeded  one  half  of  the  total  number  employed. x 
Since  1898  terms  of  employment  in  the  bituminous  coal 
mines  are  periodically  agreed  upon  between  conferees  of  the 
conventions  of  organized  mine  operators  and  organized 
mine  workers,  holding  sessions  after  the  fashion  of  two 
houses  of  an  industrial  parliament. 

TABLE  130. 

MEMBERSHIP  OF  THE  UNITED  MINE  WORKERS  OF  AMERICA,   1890-1904. a 

Year  Number  Year                                                Number 

1890 20,912  1898 32,9O2 

1891 17,044  1899 61,887 

1892. I9.376  1900 115,521 

1893 14,244  1901 198,024 

1894 , 17,628  1902 175,367 

1895 10,871  1903 247,240 

1896 9,617  1904 :  260,075 

1897.. 9,731 

The  Industrial  Commission  says  in  a  survey  of  the  history 
f  the  miners'  unions  up  to  the  end  of  the  past  century: 

Labor  organization  among  the  coal  miners  has  passed  through  ex- 
traordinary vicissitudes.  The  Welsh,  Scotch,  English,  and  Irish  miners 
were  well  organized  and  maintained  high  wages,  but  in  1875,  not  owing 
to  the  presence  of  immigrants,  but  as  a  result  of  a  strike  against  a 
falling  market,  their  organization  was  entirely  broken  and  their  wages 
greatly  reduced.  Not  until  1897,  in  the  bituminous  field,  and  1900, 
in  the  anthracite  field,  was  a  reorganization  effected,  this  time  not  of 
the  original  British  stock  alone,  but  also  of  the  mixed  nationalities  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe.  .  .  .  While  there  have  been  serious 
problems  in  the  organization  of  mixed  nationalities,  an  equally  serious 
problem  which  has  confronted  the  organization  of  these  immigrants 
has  been  the  competition  of  the  unorganized  Americans  of  native  stock.  Y 
This  was  fully  shown  in  the  experience  of  the  miners  prior  to  1897, 
when  their  organizations  in  Northern  Illinois  were  defeated  by  the 
native  Americans  in  Southern  Illinois.  In  the  first  mining  district  of 
Illinois  the  per  cent  of  Americans  is  only  eleven,  and  in  the  seventh,  in 
the  Southern  part  of  the  State,  it  is  eighty.  Yet,  it  was  these  American 
miners  in  the  thick  and  more  easily  mined  veins  of  the  Southern  section 

1  Frank  Julian  Warne:  The  Coal  Mine  Workers,  pp.  120, 206, 212, 218. 
'Ibid.,  pp.  117,  120,  212,  218. 


448  Immigration  and  Labor 

whose  competition  reduced  wages  so  low  that  they  were  actually  earning 
less  than  in  the  Northern  districts.  The  success  of  the  strike  in  1897 
consisted  mainly  in  the  fact  that  the  Southern  American-born  miners 
were  brought  into  the  Union  and  placed  on  a  basis  of  equal  competition 
with  the  foreign-born  miners.  A  similar  condition  at  the  present  time 
confronts  the  mining  organization  of  the  four  great  States  of  the  bitumi- 
nous field  in  the  competition  of  West  Virginia,  where  the  native  whites 
of  native  parents  number  57  H  per  cent  and  the  colored  miners  number 
21  per  cent  of  the  total  number  of  miners,  compared  with  20  to  48  per 
cent  native  whites  of  both  native  and  foreign  parentage  in  the  other 
States.  Prices  and  wages  in  West  Virginia  are  30  to  70  per  cent  below 
those  under  similar  conditions  in  the  other  States.  .  .  .  The  organiza- 
tion of  150,000  bituminous  mine  workers,  over  one  half  of  whom  are 
foreign-born  of  diverse  races,  is  menaced  more  by  the  unorganized 
Americans  of  native  stock  than  by  their  own  internal  divisions.1 

In  another  part  of  the  same  report  the  history  of  the 
contests  in  Illinois  is  given  in  greater  detail : 

The  jeopardy  fl-«d  jWgat_nfJjhe  tinionsJias-beea-  owing  as  often  to 
thecompetition  of  unorganized  A.mencass^^_na,tive  stock  in  new 
fiekJsTas  in  the  competition  of  the  foreign-born.  This  is  fully  demon- 
stratecTBy  the  experience  of  the  miners  prior  to  1897,  when  they  were 
defeated  by  the  competition  of  Southern  Illinois,  and,  since  1897,  when 
they  were  jeopardized  by  the  competition  of  West  Virginia.  Beginning 
with  1886  .  .  .  the  local  organization  of  miners  known  as  the  Federa- 
tion of  Miners  and  Mine  Laborers  acquired  such  strength  that  it  was 
able  to  summon  the  operators  of  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  and  Illinois  to 
annual  conferences  for  the  purposes  of  agreements  regarding  the  scale 
of  wages  in  these  competitive  States.  .  .  .  During  the  entire  period 
of  these  interstate  conferences,  from  1886  to  1893,  it  has  been  impossible 
for  the  unions  to  organize  Southern  Illinois.  The  miners  injthat  section 
w^re  predominatingly  Arrlencans^  Theyj^re^larm  laborers  who  had 
timlext5D4J3e-nitn^r^  a  source  of  readylSshTTTTTheir  rates  per  ton 
for  mining  coal  were  twenty-eight  to  thirty-eight  cents,  as  compared 
with  sixty-two  to  seventy  cents  in  the  Northern  fields.  ...  In  order 
to  protect  the  miners  in  the  Northern,  thin-veined  districts,  and  permit 
their  coal  to  come  into  the  market  at  living  wages,  the  union  has  forced 
the  miners  in  the  Southern,  thick-veined  districts  to  increase  their 
earnings  from  the  lowest  in  the  State  to  the  highest  in  the  State.  This 
is  one  of  the  necessities  of  the  system  of  differentials  in  arranging  scales 
of  prices  for  different  sections  of  the^same  competitive  field,  and  it  was 
exactly  the  evil  of  the  former  unorganized  condition  that  the  American 

1  Reports  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  pp.  xxxv.-xxxvi. 


The  Coal  Miners  449 

miners  in  the  Southern  field  had  reduced  their  compensation  so  low 
notwithstanding  the  greater  productivity  of  the  mines,  that  they  were 
earning  less  than  the  meager  wages  of  the  foreign-born  miners  in  the 
Northern  fields.  .  .  .  The  present  high  wages  of  the  Southern  field  are  not,\ 
therefore,  owing  to  a  higher  standard  of  living  or  superior  capacity  for 
organization  of  Americans  as  compared  with  foreigners,  but  are  owing  to    C 
the  inj^ajj^iandj/nterference  oj fp  feigners,  who,  in  self-protection,  forced    1 
the  Americans  to  a  higher  position  than  the  one  they  were  willing  to  accept.* 

The  Immigration  Commission  quotes  the  opinion  of 
"the  older  employees" — "that in  general  the  immigration 
of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  has  been  very  disastrous 
to  the  labor  unions  in  the  coal-mining  industry.  In  some 
districts  the  unions  have  been  entirely  disrupted,  and  old  X 
operatives  assert  that  this  was  directly  due  to  the  coming 
of  the  later  immigrants."2  The  illustrations  cited  by  the 
Commission  in  support  of  this  claim  prove  the  very  op- 
posite of  it.  In  the  strike  of  1884  in  the  Connelsville  coke 
region  the  Slav,  Magyar,  and  Italian  workmen  joined  the  I 
American  and  Irish  strikers.  The  strike  was  defeated,  ' 
but  "the  percentage  of  recent  immigrants  was  relatively 
small" ;  no  reason  is  given  why  the  defeat  should  be  attrib- 
uted to  that  small  number  rather  than  to  the  weakness  of 
the  English-speaking  majority.  In  1 890  the  strike  was  again 
defeated,  although  "in  this  case  also  the  immigrants  joined 
the  strike."  In  1894  the  men  struck  again.  '  The  Ameri- 
cans, English,  and  Irish  were  leaders  of  the  strike  and  the 
immigrants  very  generally  joined  the  organization  which 
had  been  effected  only  two  weeks  previously."  The  strike 
originally  extended  to  seventy-seven  out  of  eighty-five 
plants;  after  six  weeks  of  striking  ninety- two  per  cent  of 
all  ovens  were  idle.  By  that  time,  however,  many  of  the 
strikers  "were  enduring  severe  hardships."  Still  the 
majority  held  out  for  two  months  longer,  and  a  minority 
stayed  out  in  all  for  five  months.  The  strike  was  defeated. 
That  was  the  end  of  the  organization  in  that  field.3 

1  Reports  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  pp.  407-409. 
3  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission^  vol.  6,  p.  332. 
3  Ibid.,  pp.  332-334. 


450  Immigration  and  Labor 

It  is  sought  to  fasten  the  responsibility  for  the  defeat  of 
these  strikes  upon  the  Slav,  Magyar,  and  Italian  strikers; 
"the  American  and  Irish  leaders"  are  said  to  have  "found 
difficulty  in  restraining  them  from  violence  during  the 
strikes."  In  general,  it  is  remarked  that  "in  strikes  the 
recent  immigrant  members  .  .  .  are  often  inclined  to 
resort  to  violence  and  other  methods  that  bring  the  union 
and  its_c^^eJnto-xiisr£pute7Tr~ 

In  view  of  the  recent  developments  in  the  McNamara  case 
these  protestations  of  "the  American  and  Irish  leaders" 
may  be  accepted  cum  grano  salis.  "  The  undesirable  alien  " 
is  a  convenient  scapegoat  to  appease  public_ppinion1_  which 
is  not  burdened  with  memories  of  the  long  ago.  The  ter- 
rorism of  the  Molly  Maguires  has  a  literature.  Rioting  is 
chronicled  as  an  incident  of  almost  every  strike  of  import- 
ance in  the  coal  mines  for  the  last  sixty  years.  The  first 
great  strike  of  which  there  is  any  record  occurred  in  the 
spring  of  1849  under  the  leadership  of  the  Bates  union. 

"The  strike  was  accompanied  by  violence.  Miners, 
armed  with  cudgels,  formed  themselves  into  bands  and 
marched  down  the  Black  Valley  to  collieries  which  were 
working,  and  by  intimidation  compelled  the  men  to  join 
their  ranks." 

In  the  strike  of  1868  an  effort  was  made  by  the  strikers 
to  draw  into  the  contest  all  mine  workers  of  the  anthracite 
region. 

They  marched  to  the  Mahanoy  Valley  and  stopped  the  collieries 
there,  then  they  advanced  to  the  Schuylkill  Valley  and  did  the  same 
there.  Thus  most  of  the  Southern  and  Middle  collieries  were  closed. 
They  resolved  then  to  continue  their  march  to  the  Wyoming  Valley 
and  persuade  the  miners  there  to  join  their  ranks.  The  employees  of 
the  Wilkes-Barre  District  joined  them.  Along  the  line  of  march  they 
compelled  all  classes  of  workmen  to  throw  down  their  tools  and  fall 
into  line.  The  mechanics  of  Wilkes-Barre  were  forced  to  quit  work 
and  join  the  strikers;  the  same  was  done  with  the  force  working  on  the 
Wilkes-Barre  jail  at  the  time.  The  sheriff  of  Luzerne  County  addressed 
them  and  asked  them  to  disperse,  but  to  no  purpose. 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  pp.  332-333. 


The  Coal  Miners  451 

On  January  10,  1871,  the  Workingmen's  Benevolent 
Association  declared  a  general  strike  in  all  anthracite  col- 
lieries in  sympathy  with  the  miners  of  the  Northern  field. 
Practically  all  collieries  were  shut  down  and  remained  so 
until  May,  when  "  a  few  shafts  were  started  by  the 
Delaware,  Lackawanna  &  Western  Company.  Riots  en- 
sued. The  military  power  of  the  State  was  called  out  and 
in  a  conflicit  between  it  and  the  strikers,  two  of  the  miners 
were  shot  and  several  wounded.  ...  Labor  was  utterly 
defeated  in  the  contest." 

In  1877  the  great  railroad  strike  tied  up  the  anthracite 
coal  mines.  The  miners  of  the  Delaware,  Lackawanna  & 
Western  and  of  the  Delaware  &  Hudson  collieries  joined 
in  the  strike.  "  Labor  riots  were  the  order  of  the  day."1 

This  is  the  record  of  the  anthracite  region  only.  The 
battle  of  the  Homestead  strikers  with  the  Pinkertons  in 
1892,  the  troubles  in  the  metalliferous  mines  of  Colorado  and 
Idaho,  the  recent  strike  of  the  firemen  on  the  Southern  rail- 
ways, and  many  other  episodes  in  which  none  but  English- 
speaking  workmen  were  involved,  conclusively  prove  that 
violence  jn_ strikes is  not  a  racial  characteristic  of  "the\/ 
recent_immigrants  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe."  A 

Since  the  United  Mine  Workers  has  won  the  support  of 
these  immigrants,  who  now  form  the  backbone  of  that 
organization,  very  little  is  heard  of  strike  riots.  For  the 
past  fourteen  years,  as  stated,  terms  of  employment  in  the 
bituminous  mines  are  peaceably  agreed  upon  between 
representatives  of  organized  mine  operators  and  organized 
mine  workers. 

The  United  Mine  Workers  has  so  far  failed  in  its 
efforts  to  gain  a  foothold  in  West  Virginia  and  in  the  South- 
ern fields.  But  its  defeat  is  not  attributable  to  recent 
immigrants.  "Until  1897  the  immigrant  labor  employed 
was  not  in  excess  of  10  per  cent  of  the  total  operating 
forces."3  Consequently,  the  defeat  of  the  strikes  of  1894 

1  Roberts,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  172-181. 

•*  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  7,  pp.  146-147. 


452  Immigration  and  Labor 

and  1895  could  not  have  been  brought  on  by  recent  immi- 
grants. The  next  strike  took  place  in  1902.  "  A  majority 
of  the  mines  were  closed  for  a  considerable  period."  The 
operators  imported  strike-breakers — Americans,  as  well  as 
immigrants — and  the  strike  ultimately  failed.1 

Since  that  time  West  Virginia  has  been  a  non-union  field. 
But  it  had  been  a  non-union  field  also  previous  to  the  strike 
of  1902,  when  57.8  per  cent  of  all  mine  workers  were  native 
white  of  native  parentage  and  73.4  per  cent  belonged  to  the 
English-speaking  races.  Yet  shortly  before  the  strike  of 
1902,  prices  and  wages  in  West  Virginia  were  "30  to 
70  per  cent  below  those  under  similar  conditions  in  the 
other  States."2 

On  the  other  hand,  in  Alabama  only  13  per  cent 
of  all  mine  workers  are  foreign-born,  and  only  10  per 
cent  from  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe,  while  26  per 
cent  are  native  white  of  native  parentage  and  31  per  cent 
English-speaking  white,  the  other  59  per  cent  being 
negroes.  Yet  "a  very  small  proportion  of  natives  .  .  . 
are  identified  with  organized  labor  .  .  .  for  the  rea- 
son that  in  only  one  small  district  of  the  Southern  field 
is  organized  labor  recognized."3  A  series  of  questions 
naturally  arises :  Why  is  organized  labor  not  recognized  in 
the  Southern  field?  Why  have  the  natives  not  organized? 
Why  have  they  not  won  recognition  for  organized  labor? 
There  seems  to  be  no  chosen  people  endowed  with  special 
trade-union  qualifications:  there  are  well-organized  mines 
with  a  predominantly  non-English-speaking  force  and  unor- 
ganized mines  manned  chiefly  by  Anglo-Saxons. 

The  inability  of  the  immigrants  to  understand  the  English 
language  may  have  been  an  obstacle  to  organization  among 
them  in  the  early  days  when  they  were  few.  At  present, 
however,  when  every  European  language  is  spoken  in 
every  mining  field,  there  is  no  difficulty  in  rinding  a 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  7,  pp.  150-151. 
3  Reports  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv.,  pp.  407-408. 
s  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  7,  pp.  142,  196. 


The  Coal  Miners  453 

sufficient  number  of  English-speaking  persons  of  each 
nationality  who  can  represent  their  countrymen  in  union 
matters. x 

There  are  no  available  statistics  of  the  distribution  of 
union  membership  by  nationality.  It  can  be  estimated, 
however,  for  the  State  of  Illinois.  In  1904,  51,167  out  of 
54,685  mine  workers  in  that  State,  i.  e.t  93  per  cent  were 
affiliated  with  the  United  Mine  Workers  of  America.2 
According  to  the  census  of  1900,  78  per  cent  of  the  total 
number  of  mine  workers  in  Illinois  were  of  "English-speak- 
ing" parentage.3  Assuming  that  every  one  of  the  latter 
class  was  a  member  of  the  organization  1 5  per  cent  of  the 
remaining  22  per  cent,  i.e.,  75  per  cent  of  all  persons  of  Slav 
and  Italian  parentage,  must  likewise  have  been  affiliated 
with  the  organization.  In  fact,  the  percentage  of  organized 
Slavs  and  Italians  must  have  been  higher,  since  their  pro- 
portion among  the  coal  miners  of  Illinois  had  increased  from 
1900  to  1904.  Moreover,  it  is  reasonable  to  assume  that 
some  of  the  English-speaking  mine  workers  did  not  belong 
to  the  union,  which  would  further  add  to  the  estimated  per- 
centage of  organized  Slavs  and  Italians.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  Kentucky  99.5  per  cent  of  all  mine  workers  were  of 
English-speaking  parentage,  and  in  Tennessee  99  per  cent.4 
But  the  proportion  of  union  men  among  them  was  2 1  per 
cent  in  Kentucky  and  24  per  cent  in  Tennessee.5 

The  most  significant  test  of  the  strength  of  the  organiza- 
tion is  its  recognition  by  the  Steel  Trust : 

The  Slav  in  the  mines  is  paid  from  50  to  90  per  cent  more  per 
hour  than  his  countrymen  working  in  the  mills  and  factories  of  Pitts- 
burg,  at  jobs  requiring  the  same  amount  of  skill  and  strength.  In 
many  cases  the  same  company  is  compelled  to  pay  these  different  rates 
for  the  same  class  of  labor.  The  great  steel  mills  and  glass  factories 

1  The  proportion  of  English-speaking  persons  among  the  Southern 
and  Eastern  European  coal  miners  enumerated  by  the  Immigration  Com- 
mission varied  for  different  nationalities  from  30  to  75  per  cent.— 
Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  p.  196,  Table  122. 

3  Wame,  loc.  cit.,  p.  1 1 7.  »  See  Appendix,  Table  XXVII. 

<  Ibid.  sWarne, 


454  Immigration  and  Labor 

of  the  district  are  all  non-union.  The  companies  which  own  them  also 
own  many  of  the  coal  mines  of  Allegheny  and  Washington  counties. 
These  are  all  union  mines,  and  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation, 
Jones  &  Laughlin,  the  Pittsburgh  Glass  Company,  as  mine  owners,  sign 
agreements  with  the  unions  which  provide  for  an  eight-hour  day  and 
a  scale  of  wages  almost  double  what  they  pay  for  the  same  labor  in  the 
manufacturing  plants.  Prof.  John  R.  Commons  has  summed  up,  for 
the  Pittsburgh  Survey,  a  comparison  of  the  men  in  the  mills  with  those 
in  the  mines,  in  the  following  words: 

"Taking  everything  into  account — wages,  hours,  leisure,  cost  of 
living,  conditions  of  work — I  should  say  that  the  common  laborer 
employed  by  the  steel  companies  in  their  mines  is  50  to  90  per 
cent  better  off  than  the  same  grade  of  labor  employed  at  their  mills 
and  furnaces;  that  the  semi-skilled  labor  employed  at  piece  rates  is 
40  to  50  per  cent  better  off;  but  among  the  highest  paid  labor,  the 
steel  roller  and  the  mine  worker  are  about  the  same."* 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  highest-paid  positions, 
both  in  the  mines  and  in  the  mills,  are  controlled  exclusively 
by  native  Americans  or  by  the  old  immigrant  races,  whereas 
the  unskilled  positions  are  practically  all  held  by  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europeans.  In  the  semi-skilled  positions,  the 
English-speaking  and  the  non-English-speaking  workmen 
meet  on  common  ground.  It  thus  appears  that  the  activity 
of  jthe  union  has  secured  the  best  terms  for  the  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europeans,  and  a  very  substantial  improvement  for 
alTempIoyees  where__the_  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans 
arejajactor  in  the  labor  situations,  whereas  in  the  highest 
grades  controlled  by  the  English-speaking  races,  the  organ- 
ized mine-workers  have  gained  no  better  terms  than  those 
which  the  steel  companies  were  willing  to  offer  to  the 
unorganized  steel  workers. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  Immigration  Commission, 
while  dwelling  upon  the  failure  of  the  United  Mine  Workers 
to  extend  its  control  to  the  bituminous  fields  of  Pennsyl- 
vania outside  of  the  Pittsburgh  district,  has  passed  in  silence 
the  signal  success  of  the  same  organization  in  the  anthracite 
coal  fields,  where  the  same  nationalities  are  employed  as  in 
the  bituminous  mines  of  Pennsylvania. 

1  Leiserson,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  318-319. 


The  Coal  Miners  455 

The  history  of  organization  in  the  anthracite  coal  field 
begins  as  early  as  1848.  In  that  year  the  "Bates  Union," 
so-called,  was  organized.  It  existed  only  two  years.  There 
was  no  organization  in  the  anthracite  coal  fields  until 
1868,  when  the  Workingmen's  Benevolent  Association  was 
founded.  It  succeeded  in  organizing  for  a  while  85 
per  cent  of  all  mine  workers.  But  in  1871,  after  an  unsuc- 
cessful strike,  it  lost  the  Northern  field,  which  remained 
unorganized  for  twenty-six  years.  In  the  Middle  and 
Southern  fields  it  led  a  moribund  existence  until  1875.  For 
nine  years  there  was  again  no  organization.  From  1884 
to  1888  there  were  first  two  organizations  which  in  1887 
consolidated  into  one  under  the  auspices  of  the  Knights  of 
Labor,  which  was  at  that  time  in  the  heyday  of  its  triumphs. 
But  a  disastrous  strike  which  lasted  from  November, 
1887,  to  March,  1888,  put  an  end  to  the  organization  of  the 
anthracite  coal  miners. 

In  1897  the  United  Mine  Workers  undertook  the  organi- 
zation of  the  anthracite  mines.  Its  growth  was  slow  until 
1900,  when  it  engaged  in  its  first  great  strike  which  was  won 
after  all  collieries  had  been  practically  tied  up  for  six  weeks. x 
The  strike  of  1900  was  followed  by  the  great  struggle  of 
1902  which  was  ended  by  the  award  of  President  Roosevelt's 
Anthracite  Coal  Strike  Commission. 

,     This  brief  survey  shows  that  all  organizations  of  the 
English-speaking  workers  were  short-lived  and  seldom  sur- 
vivect~c>ne  unsuccessful  strike.     It  is  only  since  the~a3vent~ 
of  the  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  that  the  union  has 
taken  a  firm  hold  of  the  industry. 

Dr.  Roberts,  reviewing  the  history  of  unionism  in  the 
anthracite  coal  industry,  says : 

John  Graham  Brooks,  when  he  studied  the  Lattimer  riots  of  1897, 
found  on  the  Hazleton  Mountain  over  a  dozen  nationalities.  He  ex- 
pressed the  conviction  that  it  was  a  hopeless  task  to  attempt  to  form 
them  into  a  labor  organization.  Paul  de  Rousiers,  in  his  essay  on 
Les  Tentatives  de  Monopolisation  de  I' Anthracite,  expressed  a  similar 

1  Roberts,  loc.  cit.,  p.  184. 


456  Immigration  and  Labor 

opinion.  He  compared  the  present  personnel  of  anthracite  employees, 
"largely  composed  of  Polanders,  Hungarians,  and  Lithuanians,  who  are 
turbulent  and  incapable  of  being  advantageously  formed  into  an 
association,"  with  the  Americans,  Germans,  and  English  of  1868,  who 
so  successfully  organized  the  Workingmen's  Benevolent  Association, 
and  believed  they  could  not  be  successfully  organized  into  a  labor 
organization.  Both  eminent  men  have  proved  to  be  false  prophets. 
Thestanchest  members  of  the  union  are  the  Slavs,  and  the  organizers  of 
the~United  Mine  Workers  of  America  have  successfully  overcome  racial 
differences,  national  antipathies  and  industrial  prejudices,  and  formed 
into  one  body  the  fifteen  or  sixteen  nationalities  now  constituting  the 
anthracite  mining  communities.1 

The  opinions  of  those  "false  prophets"  were  still  reit- 
erated after  the  strikes  of  1900  and  1902  by  labor  men,  who 
"had  learned  nothing  and  forgotten  nothing,"  and  were 
embodied  by  the  Immigration  Commission  in  its  report. 

These  foreigners,  [says  Dr.  Roberts  elsewhere]  have  proved  capable 
of  forming  labor  organizations  which  are  more  compact  and  united 
than  any  which  ever  existed  among  the  various  English-speaking 
nationalities,  who  first  constituted  these  communities.  It  is  conceded 
by  men  intimate  with  the  situation  throughout  the  coal  fields  during 
the  last  strike,  that  its  universality  was  more  due  to  the  Slav  than  to 
any  other  nationality.  There  would  have  been  in  all  probability  a 
break  in  the  ranks  in  Schuylkill  County  had  it  not  been  for  the  firm  and 
uncompromising  stand  of  the  Slavs  in  favor  of  the  strike.  They  have 
been  trained  to  obedience,  and  when  they  organize  they  move  with  a 
unanimity  that  is  very  seldom  seen  among  nations  who  pride  themselves 
on  personal  liberty  and  free  discussion.3 

These  lines  were  written  by  Dr.  Roberts  previous  to  the 
strike  of  1902.  The  significance  of  the  latter  was  that  the 
other  side  to  the  controversy  was  a  trust  which  was  (and  is) 
in  complete  control  of  the  whole  anthracite  coal  industry. 
The  outcome  of  the  contest  has  been  the  creation  of  a  demo- 
cratic organization  of  all  mine  workers  to  which  the  trust 
cannot  deny  recognition,  with  a  machinery  for  fixing  wages 
and  other  terms  of  employment,  as  well  as  for  the  settlement 
of  disputes.  „ 

After  twenty  years  of  immigration  from  Southern  and 

1  Roberts,  loc.  ciL,  pp.  196-197.  » Ibid.,  pp.  171-172. 


The  Coal  Miners  457 

Eastern  Europe,  the  coal  miners  are  more  strongly  organized 
than  they  had  ever  been  before  the  English-speaking  mine 
workers  relinquished  the  lower  grades  of  work  to  the  recent 
immigrants;  the  hours  of  labor  have  been  reduced,  wages 
have  risen,  and  the  majority  of  the  older  employees  have 
advanced  on  the  scale  of  occupations. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  "small  part  [of  the  'pioneer  em- 
ployees and  their  descendants']  consisting  of  the  inert, 
unambitious,  thriftless  element,  have  remained  on  the  lower 
level  of  the  scale  of  occupations  where  they  are  in  open  com- 
petition with  the  majority  of  the  races  of  recent  immigra- 
tion in  comparison  with  whom  they  are  generally  considered 
less  efficient."1  It  is  said  in  their  behalf  that  their  anxiety 
to  be  "removed  from  contact  and  competition  with  the 
immigrant"  has  "forced"  them  "into  day  or  shift  work^at 
a  lower  rate  of  pay  than  in  digging  coal."2  In  order  to 
escape  the  ruinous  competition  of  the  recent  immigrant, 
the  English-speaking  miner,  it  would  seem,  is  willing  to 
accept  lower  wages  than  the  immigrant.  It  may  be  ques- 
tioned whether  this  small  residue  of  English-speaking  mine 
workers  who  are  "considered  less  efficient"  than  the  South- 
ern and  Eastern  Europeans  could  have  succeeded  better  in 
competition  with  native  or  English-speaking  miners,  had 
there  been  no  immigration  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe.  Probably  the  reference  to  "competition  with  the 
immigrant"  is  merely  a  pleonasm,  the  idea  being  that  the 
English-speaking  miner  is  willing  to  make  a  financial  sacrifice 
in  order  to  be  "removed  from  contact  with  the  immigrant." 
The  objection  to  the  recent  immigrant  is  accordingly  in- 
spired by  pure  and  simple  race  prejudice.  This  is,  how- 
ever, beside  the  question,  so  long  as  it  is  maintained  that 
immigration  should  be  treated  "upon  economic  or  business 
considerations. ' ' 3 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  pp.  536-537. 

2  Ibid.,  vol.  6,  pp.  666-667;  vol.  7,  p.  222. 

3  Recommendations  of  the  Immigration  Commission. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

WORK   ACCIDENTS 

greatest  of  all  the  dangers  of  the  new  immigration, 
which  have  been  discovered  by  the  investigation  of  the 
Immigration  Commission,  is  that  their  employment  in 
mines  and  manufactures  jeopardizes  the  lives  of  American 
wage-earners.  The  Commission  has  devoted  to  the  sub- 
ject a  special  chapter  in  its  report  on  bituminous  coal 
mines.1  Its  conclusions  are  summarized  by  Professors 
Jenks  and  Lauck  as  follows2: 

The  lack  of  industrial  training  and  experience  of  the  recent  im- 
migrant before  coming  to  the  United  States,  together  with  his  illit- 
eracy and  inability  to  speak  English,  has  had  the  effect  of  exposing  the 
original  employees  to  unsafe  and  unsanitary  working  conditions,  or  has 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  chapter  viii.,  pp. 
209-241;  also,  pp.  491-492,  543,  651-652;  vol.  7,  pp.  68-69. 

aThe  Commission  is,  of  course,  not  responsible  officially  for  the 
statement  of  those  authors.  But  the  book  is  very  largely  a  verbatim 
transcript  of  the  most  essential  portions  of  the  Commission's  voluminous 
report.  On  the  subject  of  accidents,  the  report  of  the  Commission  says 
in  Volume  6: 

"The  responsibility  for  accidents  rests  in  most  cases  with  the  men 
injured  .  .  .  they  know  little  or  nothing  of  rock  formations,  of  fire 
damp,  of  the  properties  of  coal  dust,  and  of  the  handling  of  explosives 
— matters  about  which  every  coal  miner  should  be  thoroughly  informed. 
To  determine  whether  a  piece  of  slate  or  -roof  is  or  is  not  likely  to  fall 
often  requires  a  considerable  degree  of  experience,  and  the  majority 
of  the  Slavs,  Magyars,  and  Italians  have  not  this  experience.  Another 
element  of  danger  is  contributed  by  the  fact  that  few  of  the  recent 
immigrants  speak  or  understand  English,  while  almost  none  are  able 
to  read  or  write  the  language.  It  is  probable  that  the  instructions  of 
the  mine  bosses  and  inspectors  are,  because  of  this  fact,  frequently 

458 


Work  Accidents  459 

led  to  the  imposition  of  conditions  of  employment  which  the  native 
American  or  older  immigrant  employees  have  considered  unsatisfactory 
and  in  some  cases  unbearable.  When  the  older  employees  have  found 
dangerous  and  unhealthy  conditions  prevailing  in  the  mines  and  manu- 
facturing establishments  and  have  protested,  the  recent  immigrant  employees^ 
usually  through  ignorance  of  mining  or  other  working  methods,  have 
manifested  a  willingness  to  accept  the  alleged  unsatisfactory  conditions. 
In  a  large  number  of  cases,  the  lack  of  training  and  experience  of  the 
Southern  and  Eastern  European  affects  only  his  own  safety.  On  the 
other  hand,  his  ignorant  acquiescence  in  dangerous  and  unsanitary  work- 
ing conditions  may  make  the  continuance  of  such  conditions  possible  and 
become  a  menace  to  a  part  or  to  the  whole  of  an  operating  force  of  an 
industrial  establishment.  In  mining,  the  presence  of  an  untrained 
employee  may  constitute  an  element  of  danger  to  the  entire  body  of 
workmen.  There  seems  to  be  a  direct  causal  relation  between  the 
extensive  employment  of  recent  immigrants  in  American  mines  and  the 
extraordinary  increase  within  recent  years  in  the  number  of  mining 
accidents.  //  is  an  undisputed  fact  that  the  greatest  number  of  accidents 
in  bituminous  coal  mines  arise  from  two  causes:  (i)  the  recklessness,  and 
(2)  the  ignorance  and  inexperience,  of  employees.  When  the  lack  of 
training  of  the  recent  immigrant  abroad  is  considered  in  connection 
with  the  fact  that  he  becomes  a  workman  in  the  mines  immediately 
upon  his  arrival  in  this  country,  and  when  it  is  recalled  that  a  large 
proportion  of  the  new  arrivals  are  not  only  illiterate  and  unable  to  read 
any  precautionary  notices  posted  in  the  mines,  but  also  unable  to  speak 
English  and  consequently  without  ability  to  comprehend  instructions 
intelligently,  the  inference  is  plain  that  the  employment  of  recent  immi- 

niisunderstood.  An  inspector,  for  example,  tells  an  immigrant  miner, 
in  English  of  course,  that  his  roof  needs  propping.  The  miner  seems 
to  understand,  but  does  not,  and  a  fall  results.  In  some  mines  printed 
signs  are  used  to  indicate  the  presence  of  gas  or  other  peril.  These  are 
quite  unintelligible  to  most  of  the  foreigners,  because,  through  lack  of 
training,  they  are  unable  to  recognize  the  presence  of  danger,  and  further, 
because  of  their  keenness  for  earning  money,  the  immigrants  are  often 
willing  to  work  in  places  where  more  experienced  or  more  intelligent 
men  would  refuse  to  work.  For  the  same  reasons  they  will  frequently 
be  satisfied  with  and  accept  mine  equipment  too  defective  for  safety. 
.  .  .  The  ignorance  and  inexperience  of  the  workmen  of  the  races  of 
recent  immigration  employed  in  mines  are  responsible  in  a  large  measure 
for  the  high  death  rate  reported.  Owing  to  the  large  number  of  factors 
affecting  the  situation,  no  hard  and  fast  conclusion  can  be  drawn,  but 
the  inference  from  the  data  available  clearly  warrants  the  assertion 
that  the  employment  of  immigrant  mine  workers  has  a  direct  bearing 
upon  mining  casualties."  (pp.  232-233,  241.) 


460  Immigration  and  Labor 

grants  has  caused  a  deterioration  in  working  conditions.  No  complete 
statistics  have  been  compiled  as  to  the  connection  between  accidents 
and  races  employed,  but  the  figures  available  clearly  indicate  the  con- 
clusion that  there  has  been  a  direct  relation  between  the  employment 
of  untrained  foreigners  and  the  prevalence  of  mining  casualties.1 

The  two  causes  from  which,  according  to  this  explanation, 
the  greatest  number  of  accidents  arise,  are  but  the  familiar 
defenses  in  an  employer's  liability  case  under  the  common 
law:  (i)  negligence  of  the  injured  employee  or  of  a  fellow- 
servant,  (2)  assumption  of  risk  by  the  injured  employee. 

The  Immigration  Commission  rests  its  conclusions  on 
the  opinions  of  State  mining  officials  and  experts  of  the 
Federal  Government,  seemingly  supported  by  an  array  of 
statistical  figures.  An  examination  of  these  authorities, 
however,  will  show  that  they  have  merely  accepted  the 
mine  operator's  point  of  view  without  turning  their  atten- 
tion to  the  technical  and  the  economic  side  of  coal  mining 
in  the  United  States. 

Miss  Eastman,  in  her  study  of  work  accidents  for  the 
Pittsburgh  Survey,  has  carefully  scrutinized  the  sources  of 
the  accepted  explanation  of  the  causes  of  work  accidents. 
In  vivid  conversational  style  she  thus  characterizes  the 
typical  attitude  "of  those  best  informed  upon  the  subject"3: 

"So  you  have  come  to  Pittsburgh  to  study  accidents,  have  you?" 
says  the  superintendent,  or  the  claim  agent,  or  the  general  manager,  as 
the  case  may  be.  "Well,  I  've  been  in  this  business  fifteen  years  and 
I  can  tell  you  one  thing  right  now, — p5  per  cent  of  our  accidents 
are  due  to  the  carelessness  of  the  man  who  gets  hurt.  Why,  you  simply 
would  n't  believe  the  things  they  '11  do.  For  instance,  I  remember  a 
man," — and  he  goes  on  to  relate  the  most  telling  incident  he  knows  to 
prove  his  assertion.  This  is  the  almost  invariable  reaction  of  the 
Pittsburgh  employer  and  his  representatives  to  a  query  about  industrial 
accidents.  And  the  statements  of  such  men  are  the  chief  source  of 
effective  public  opinion  on  the  subject  in  Pittsburgh.* 

1  Jenks  and  Lauck,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  189-190. 

*  Phrase  used  by  the  Immigration  Commission  (Reports,  vol.  6,  p. 
216). 

3  Crystal  Eastman:  Work-Accidents  and  the  Law,  p.  84. 


Work  Accidents  461 

The  returns  of  the  mine  inspectors  on  the  causes  of  acci- 
dents are  based  upon  the  results  of  the  coroners'  inquests. 
Miss  Eastman  questions  the  reliability  of  the  evidence 
secured  at  the  inquests : 

Foremen  and  fire  bosses  are  required  at  once  to  inspect  a  room  where 
an  accident  has  occurred,  and,  if  death  results,  one  of  them  is  always 
summoned  to  the  inquest.  He  almost  invariably  testifies,  "I  found 
plenty  of  posts  in  the  room."  Since  it  is  his  business  by  law  to  see 
that  there  are  plenty  of  posts  in  the  room,  and  since  the  inquest  is  very 
casual,  unimpressive,  he  could  hardly  be  expected  to  testify  otherwise. 
Private  conversation  with  miners  sometimes  brings  other  information 
to  light.  ...  An  old  Scotch  miner  of  sixty,  said  .  .  .  that  he  "had 
often  seen  the  foreman  and  boss  hurry  to  a  room  where  an  accident  had 
happened  and  fill  it  with  posts,  so  that  when  the  inspector  arrived  there 
would  be  plenty  of  posts  on  hand."1  The  coroners'  records  were,  as  a 
rule,  meager,  sometimes  illegible,  and  almost  never  clear  and  satisfactory 
in  detail.  The  testimony,  moreover,  has  a  tendency  to  lean  to  one 
side.  The  witnesses  are  employees  of  the  company,  including  almost 
always  the  superior  of  the  man  killed.  It  is  to  his  interest  to  clear  him- 
self of  all  implications;  second,  to  clear  his  employer.  The  easiest  and 
safest  way  of  accomplishing  these  ends  is  to  blame  the  dead  man.* 

Thus,  when  we  read  in  the  reports  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Department  of  Mines  for  1907  that  "a  careful  examination 
of  the  reports  shows  that  332  accidents,  or  41.19  per  cent, 
were  due  to  the  carelessness  of  the  victim,"3  this  statement 
means  no  more  than  that  the  reports  which  reached  the 
department  "blamed  the  dead  man"  in  two  cases  out  of 
every  five.  Of  course,  41.19  per  cent  is  still  short  of  a 
majority,  but  it  is  turned  into  a  majority  of  62.29  per  cent 
by  omitting  "the  273  fatalities  of  the  Naomi  and  Darr 
mines,  which  were  caused  by  the  carelessness  of  other 
persons. ' ' 4  These  undefined  ' '  other  persons ' '  include  ' '  offi- 
cials in  direct  charge  of  the  mines."  The  propriety  of 
omitting  two  great  mine  disasters,  which  resulted  in  the 

1  Crystal  Eastman:  Work- Accidents  and  the  Law,  p.  39. 
a  Ibid.,  p.  85. 

*  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  p.  216. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  216.     (Quoted  from  the  report  of  the  Pennsylvania  Bureau 
of  Mines.) 


462  Immigration  and  Labor 

loss  of  273  lives  through  the  carelessness  of  "  other  persons," 
is  open  to  question.1  Yet  that  statement  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania report  is  the  only  direct  statistical  evidence  in  support 
of  the  Commission's  conclusion  ''that  the  responsibility 
for  a  majority  of  the  accidents  in  coal  mines  rests  with  the 
men  injured.  This  being  the  case" — continues  the  Com- 
mission— "it  is  evident  that  an  inquiry  as  to  the  responsi- 
bility of  a  given  race  for  accidents  may  perhaps  best  be 
answered  by  showing  the  extent  to  which  its  numbers  are 
sufferers  from  accidents.*'2 

Disinterested  mining  experts,  however,  do  not  accept  the 
apologetic  theory  of  the  mine  operators  as  an  "undisputed 
fact." 

At  the  summer  meeting  of  the  Mining  Institute  of 
America,  held  in  1910,  shortly  after  the  Cherry  Mine  holo- 
caust, the  causes  of  mine  fires  were  discussed  in  a  paper, 
from  which  the  following  is  quoted : 

In  looking  over  the  accounts  of  some  of  the  mine  fires  which  have 
startled  the  general  public  more  than  others,  I  was  forcibly  struck  with 
three  of  them  (Avondale,  Hill  Farm,  and  Cherry),  especially  in  the 
general  aspect  at  least  of  the  similarity  of  their  cause  and  effect,  and  of 
the  cycle  of  years  between  each.  The  Avondale  Mine  was  a  single- 
shaft  opening.  The  structural  material  used  in  the  shaft  lining,  parti- 
tions, derrick,  and  breaker,  was  composed  of  wood.  The  fire  originated 
at  the  bottom  of  the  shaft,  caused  by  the  carelessness  of  the  furnace  man 
in  lighting  the  furnace  fire,  thereby  setting  fire  to  the  wooden  partition, 
etc.  This  fire  occurred  in  the  month  of  September,  1869,  and  in  it  109 
lives  were  lost.  As  you  remember,  no  adequate  means  were  at  hand 
with  which  to  extinguish  the  fire.  .  .  .  The  Cherry  Mine'disaster  .  .  . 
originated  at  the  No.  2  seam  landing  of  the  escapement  shaft  and  was 

1  Dr.  John  Randolph  Haynes,  Special  Commissioner  on  Mining 
Accidents  of  the  State  of  California,  in  a  paper  read  at  the  last  annual 
meeting  of  the  American  Association  for  Labor  Legislation,  at  Washing- 
ton, D.  C,  questioned  the  independence  of  State  mining  inspectors: 
"  They  do  not  wish  to  lose  their  positions,  which  they  are  very  likely 
to  do  if  they  annoy  the  owners  of  coal  mines,  who  very  commonly 
own  the  railroads  which  carry  the  coal,  and  enjoy  intimate  relations 
with  banks  and  other  corporations  that  exercise  quiet  but  effective 
power  in  State  politics." — "A  Federal  Mining  Commission,"  American 
Labor  Legislation  Review,  vol.  ii,  No.  I,  p.  145.  *  Ibid.,  p.  233. 


Work  Accidents  463 

caused  by  the  ignition  of  hay  from  the  flame  of  a  crude,  improvised,  unpro- 
tected illuminating  contrivance.  The  flame  from  the  hay  was  commu- 
nicated to  the  overabundance  of  wood  supporting  material  at  the  landing, 
and  adding  thereto  the  inadequate  means  available  to  successfully  deal 
with  afire  of  such  magnitude,  with  the  ill-judged  actions  of  the  inexperi- 
enced men  at  the  bottom,  the  trap  was  complete  and  the  men  caught 
therein,  so  we  have  now  to  record  the  greatest  and  most  disastrous  mine 
fire  in  the  history  of  the  coal-mining  industry  of  this  country,  so  far  as 
the  loss  of  life  is  concerned.  Two  hundred  and  sixty -eight  lives  were 
lost  in  the  Cherry  Mine  disaster. 

It  has  always  appeared  to  me  that  the  causes  of  mine  fires  were  so 
apparent  to  the  thoughtful  and  intelligent  mining  men  that  their  occur- 
rence and  their  ill  effects  were  unnecessary.  .  .  .  The  prevention  of 
mine  fires  lies  in  the  removal  of  the  causes,  which  are  well  known,  and  the 
knowledge  of  means  and  methods  to  be  employed  for  their  elimination, 
being  within  the  range  and  scope  of  the  ability  of  the  ordinary  mine 
official,  the  wonder  is  that  they  do  happen.  To  secure  freedom  from 
mine  fires  I  believe  lies  almost  entirely  within  the  intelligently  directed 
administrative  powers  of  the  mine  management,  and  in  my  opinion  if  the 
mine  officials  are  careful,  alert,  and  capable,  immunity  from  them  can 
be  secured.  .  .  . 

Every  coal  mine  should  consist  of  two  separate  openings  and  one  of 
them  should  be  used  exclusively  for  an  escapement.  .  .  .  The  escape- 
ment shaft,  if  over  one  hundred  feet  in  depth,  should  be  equipped  with 
safe  and  efficient  hoisting  apparatus.  The  structure  at  the  hoisting 
shaft  should  be  built  of  steel,  and  the  engine  and  power  house  should 
be  built  of  concrete,  brick,  or  masonry;  the  shaft  linings  to  be  of  con- 
crete, and  the  shaft  bottoms,  if  needing  supports  for  the  roof,  should  be  of 
steel  I  beams,  concrete,  or  brickwork;  doors  between  main  shaft  and 
escapement  shaft  should  be  so  located  as  to  be  easily  accessible  to  the 
workmen  from  all  parts  of  the  mine  by  convenient  traveling  ways,  other 
than  those  which  lead  directly  to  the  bottom  of  the  hoisting  shaft; 
mule  stables,  if  not  entirely  prohibited  in  the  mines,  should  be  built 
of  incombustible  material  and  illuminated  with  protected  incandescent 
electric  lights;  all  oil,  electric,  and  gasoline  pump  houses  should  be  kept 
free  from  combustible  material,  and  be  built  of  concrete,  brickwork,  or 
masonry.  When  the  main  workings  pf  a  mine  have  advanced  five 
thousand  feet  in  length  and  the  remaining  extent  of  the  property  and 
the  other  conditions  warrant  it,  an  auxiliary  escapement  opening  should 
be  provided  and  equipped  with  efficient  and  necessary  machinery;  a  water 
system  under  sufficient  pressure  .  .  .  should  be  installed  at  all  important 
mines,  .  .  .  and  all  parts  and  connections  kept  in  first-class  condition 
and  ready  for  use  at  all  times;  all  electric  cables  or  wires,  etc.,  should  be 
well  supported  and  insulated,  and  not  allowed  to  come  in  contact  with 


464  Immigration  and  Labor 

combustible  material.  .  .  .  A  telephone  system  should  be  provided  at 
important  mines  so  that  communication  can  be  had  between  persons 
outside,  and  all  important  stations  inside  of  them;  refuge  chambers, 
efficiently  constructed  and  equipped  and  conveniently  located,  should 
be  provided  in  all  large  and  dangerous  mines. 

Mines  should  be  provided  with  a  powerful  reversible  fan,  and  it  should 
be  placed  on  a  separate  shaft,  cased  in  steel,  and  fitted  with  relief  doors.1 

These  details  have  been  quoted  in  order  to  show  that 
effective  prevention  of  accidents  in  mines  presupposes  a  care- 
fully planned  equipment  involving  considerable  expense. 
A  separate  roadway  for  miners  means  additional  tunneling 
work.  Two  separate  openings  for  every  coal  mine  cost 
twice  as  much  as  one.  Refuge  chambers  require  additional 
excavation  and  construction  work.  Concrete  or  brick  is 
more  expensive  than  wood,  which  is  generally  used  as 
structural  material  in  coal  mines.  A  powerful  reversible 
fan  placed  on  a  separate  shaft  cased  in  steel  is  another  item 
of  expense ;  so  is  a  water  system  under  sufficient  pressure, 
a  telephone  system,  etc.  All  this  is  well  known  to  mine 
superintendents,  "but  they  are  pressed  for  dividends  by  the 
presidents  and  their  companies;  the  presidents  are  not 
heartless,  but  they  are  pressed  for  dividends  by  their 
directors  who  .  .  .  are  interested  in  the  mines  only*  as  a 
matter  of  profit."2 

The  dilemma  of  the  mine  superintendent  was  set  forth 
in  a  paper  on  "Mine  Accident  Prevention,"  which  was 
recently  read  before  the  Alabama  Coal  Operators'  Associa- 
tion by  Mr.  J.  J.  Rutledge,  a  geologist  and  mining  engineer 
of  many  years'  experience,  who  has  made  his  way  from  the 
bottom  up,  beginning  as  assistant  mine  foreman  and  advan- 
cing to  the  positions  of  mine  manager  and  superintendent. 
He  has  visited  many  of  the  important  coal  mines  in  this 
country,  and  has  been  brought  into  close  personal  contact 
with  mine  foremen  and  superintendents.  He  is  of  the 
opinion  that  "the  person  who  is  the  greatest  factor  in  the  pre- 

'"Mine  Fires,"  by  Thomas  K.  Adams.  Mines  and  Minerals,  De- 
cember, 1910.  a  Haynes,  loc.  cit.,  p.  145. 


Work  Accidents  465 

vention  of  mine  accidents  is  the  mine  foreman  or  manager. 
.  .  .  He  should  never  cancel  any  requisition  for  supplies 
that  are  absolutely  required.  Perhaps  the  greatest  abuse  of 
this  sort  is  the  cancellation  of  supplies  which  are  required  to 
make  ventilation  more  effective."  But  it  is  not  unusual 
that  the  foreman  or  manager  "is  handicapped  or  hindered 
in  his  work  by  the  failure  to  receive  proper  supplies  or  equip- 
ment from  his  superiors."  That  he  might  "be  encouraged 
to  demand  the  same  and  .  .  .  be  insured  against  possible  loss 
of  employment  by  reason  of  his  making  such  a  demand  .  .  . 
the  law  should  back  him  up  in  making  such  demands."1 
It  is  an  undisputed  fact  that  poor  and  defective  methods 
of  ventilation  largely  increase  the  danger  of  gas  explosion : 
"An  adequate  air  supply  is  not  only  required  as  a  safeguard 
against  the  accumulation  of  dangerous  gases,  but  is  pre- 
requisite to  the  maintenance  of  the  health  of  miners  and 
animals  employed  underground."2 

But  the  mine  manager  who  is  not  "insured  against  pos- 
sible loss  of  employment"  will  take  his  chances  and  cancel 
requisitions  for  "supplies  that  are  absolutely  required." 
These  conditions  naturally  breed  a  spirit  of  carelessness 
among  mine  officials,  which  is,  according  to  expfert  opinion, 
"first  among  the  causes  of  the  high  fatality  rate  in  Ameri- 
can mines."  Such  was  the  conclusion  reached  by  three 
European  government  experts,  among  them  the  Belgian 
Inspector-General  of  Mines,  who  made  an  examination  of 
American  mines  upon  the  invitation  of  the  United  States 
Government.  By  way  of  illustration,  one  of  these  experts 
related  the  following  incident: 

While  passing  through  a  mine  in  West  Virginia  with  a  party  carrying 
both  naked  and  safety  lamps,  he  lifted  his  lamp  toward  the  roof  to  test 
for  gas  and  was  surprised  to  find  it  present  in  very  dangerous  quantities. 
Turning  to  the  mine  superintendent,  he  remarked,  "  You  should  not 

1 J.  J.  Rutledge:  "  Mine  Accident  Prevention."  Mines  and  Minerals, 
December,  1910. 

*  F.  L.  Hoffman:  "Fatal  Accidents  in  Coal  Mines."  Bulletin  of  the 
United  States  Bureau  of  Labor,  No.  90,  p.  471. 


466  Immigration  and  Labor 

allow  naked  lamps  to  be  used  in  this  mine."  "Oh,"  replied  the  super- 
intendent, easily,  "we  are  installing  a  ventilating  system  that  in  a 
few  months  will  rid  the  mine  entirely  of  gas  and  render  the  use  of  safety 
lamps  unnecessary."  "Before  that  time  arrives,"  protested  the  Euro- 
pean expert,  "your  mine  will  be  blown  up."  And  this  is  precisely 
what  happened.  The  naked  lamps  were  not  excluded,  the  mine  was 
blown  up  a  few  weeks  later,  and  hundreds  of  miners  lost  their  lives. 
...  No  European  mining  superintendent  would  dream  of  taking  such 
chances  as  he  foolishly  took  at  the  cost  of  so  many  lives;  and,  if  he  were 
so  inclined,  the  government  inspector  would  not  permit  him  to  do  so.1 

Mine  explosions  and  mine  fires  impress  the  imagination 
by  the  appalling  destruction  of  lives  in  a  single  accident. 
A  great  many  more  lives,  however,  are  sacrificed  under 
ordinary  circumstances  in  every-day  accidents,  which  find 
their  way  only  into  the  statistical  reports  of  State  mine 
inspectors,  being  too  common  to  be  noticed  by  the  news- 
papers. 

Every  advance  in  mining  engineering  within  recent  years 
has  had  the  effect  of  increasing  the  risks  of  the  miner  in  the 
United  States.  One  of  the  original  dangers  in  underground 
coal  mines  is  from  falls  of  roof,  which  are  the  result,  at 
least  in  part,  of  insufficient  timbering.  This  risk  has  been 
considerably  increased  by  the  use  of  high  explosives.2 
With  the  installation  of  improved  mining  machinery,  ex- 
posure to  unguarded  machines  has  been  added  to  other 
perils  of  mining.3  Electrocution  threatens  the  miner  as  a 
result  of  the  application  of  electricity  to  mining.  The  chief 
inspector  of  coal  mines  for  Pennsylvania  gave  warning  of 
this  danger  in  his  report  for  1901 : 

Electricity  in  various  forms  has  been  the  cause  of  many  of  the 
deaths  in  soft  coal  mines,  either  from  the  men  coming  in  contact  with 
the  electric  trolley  wire,  or  with  the  electric  wire  that  carries  the  power 
to  the  electric  cutting  machines.  In  my  opinion,  separate  travelling 
ways  should  be  provided  for  the  workman,  when  the  haulage  is  done  by 
electricity.* 

'Haynes,  loc.  cit.,  p.  143.  *  Eastman,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  38-39. 

» Hoffman,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  476-477-  4  Ibid.,  pp.  478-479. 


Work  Accidents  467 

When  this  recommendation  was  adopted  in  one  Colorado 
mine  ten  years  later,  the  Engineering  and  Mining  Journal 
found  the  fact  of  sufficient  interest  as  news  to  print  the 
following  letter  from  a  correspondent: 

This  mine  has  introduced  a  decided  novelty  in  the  form  of  a  separate 
roadway  for  the  miners  to  enter  and  leave  the  workings,  thus  doing  away 
with  the  necessity  of  their  travelling  along  the  haulage-ways,  and  pro- 
viding an  additional  avenue  of  escape. in  time  of  danger.1 

The  displacement  of  the  mule  by  the  cable  car  or  electric 
motor  has  been  the  source  of  a  new  danger  to  the  life  of  the 
miner.  Many  miners  are  killed  by  the  running  trains  of 
coal.  This  is,  of  course,  clearly  the  result  of  their  own 
negligence:  why  do  they  travel  in  the  haulage- way?  The 
fact  is,  however,  that  the  man-entry  and  track  are  dark 
from  beginning  to  end  and  low,  so  that  one  would  have  to 
travel  in  a  stooping  position  all  the  way.  The  track  is  cov- 
ered with  loose  slate  and  big  chunks  of  coal.  Therefore  the 
miners  prefer  the  haulage  entry,  where  there  are  occasional 
lights,  a  smooth  path  to  walk,  and  a  higher  roof. 2  Most  of 
these  risks  are  humanly  preventable, 3  and  their  continuance 
is  due  to  economic  conditions  beyond  the  control  of  the 
mine  worker,  even  with  a  perfect  command  of  English. 

The  economic  cause  of  the  high  rate  of  fatalities  in 
American  coal  mines  was  squarely  stated  by  Dr.  J.  A. 
Holmes,  Director  of  the  Bureau  of  Mines,  in  an  address 
delivered  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  National  Civic 
Federation  in  New  York,  November  23,  1909: 

There  can  be  no  permanent  industry  without  reasonable  profits. 
It  is  unjust  and  irrational  that  in  this  great  and  essential  branch  of 
industry  reasonable  profits  or  even  the  payment  of  operating  expenses 
should  be  dependent  upon  met'wds  involving  unnecessary  sacrifice  of 
human  life.  .  .  .  Ruinous  competition  exists  not  only  between  the 
operators  in  the  same  fields,  but  between  the  operators  of  one  field  as 
against  those  in  another  field  or  in  another  state  where  different  mining 
laws  and  regulations  are  in  force.  This  competition  is  ...  forcing 

1  The  Engineering  and  Mining  Journal,  January  14,  1911,  p.  135. 

2  Eastman,  loc.  tit.,  pp.  38-39.  a  Ibid.,  p.  46. 


468  Immigration  and  Labor 

even  the  larger  operator  to  mine  coal  under  conditions  which  he  cannot 
approve,  but  from  which  he  finds  no  escape.  .  .  .  Each  must  live  (or 
succumb)  by  underbidding  the  other,  which  he  can  do  only  through 
following  the  wasteful  and  unsafe  mining  methods  which  prevail  in 
this  country  to-day  in  spite  of  the  desire  of  every  operator,  to  improve 
them.  The  American  mine  owner  is  as  humane  as  the  mine  owner  of 
any  other  country,  and  he  would  like  to  follow  every  practice  and  use 
every  appliance  for  safety  to  be  found  in  Great  Britain,  or  France,  or 
Belgium,  or  Germany,  or  elsewhere,  but  he  pays  his  miners  higher 
wages  and,  at  the  same  time,  receives  for  his  coal  at  the  mine  half  the 
price  received  for  similar  coal  by  the  operator  in  those  countries.  .  .  . 
The  ruinous  competitive  system  upon  which  coal  mining  in  the  United 
States  is  based  at  the  present  time  should  be  changed  and  the  price 
paid  for  coal  at  the  mines  should  be  such  as  will  permit  and  secure 
safe  and  efficient  mining — mining  unaccompanied  by  either  this  large 
loss  of  life  or  waste  of  resources,  mining  which  can  have  due  regard 
not  only  to  the  safety,  but  also  to  the  health  and  comfort  of  the  men 
who  toil  underground. x 

Thus  in  the  opinion  of  the  head  of  the  bureau  created 
for  the  purpose  of  safeguarding  the  lives  of  the  mine  work- 
ers, "unnecessary  sacrifice  of  human  life"  is  conditioned 
by  competition  among  mine  operators. 

According  to  the  inspector-general  of  mines  of  Belgium 
(quoted above),  "similar  dangerous  conditions  once  existed 
in  France  and  Belgium,  now  the  safest  coal-mining  countries 
in  the  world/*  but  they  were  removed  by  stringent  legisla- 
tion and  by  an  effective  enforcement  of  the  law.2  In 
Europe  wooden  shafts  are  not  permitted,  the  maximum 
amount  of  explosives  to  be  used  in  one  blast  is  limited  by 
law,  all  machinery  must  be  properly  guarded,  etc.  Dr. 
Holmes  believes  that  the  adoption  of  similar  regulations  in 
the  United  States  would  prevent  three  fourths  of  the  present 

'Joseph  A.  Holmes:  "Coal  Mine  Accidents  and  their  Prevention," 
Thirty- Fifth  Annual  Report  of  the  Chief  Inspector  of  Mines  of  the  State 
of  Ohio,  1909,  pp.  126-128. 

aHaynes,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  148,  150-151.  Clarence  Hall  and  Walter  O. 
Snelling:  "Coal  Mine  Accidents:  their  Causes  and  Prevention."  Bul- 
letin of  the  United  States  Geological  Survey,  No.  333,  p.  6.  Eastman,  loc. 
cit.,  p.  46.  Hoffman,  loc.  cit.,  pp.  476-477. 


Work  Accidents 


469 


loss  of  life,1  which  implies  that  "the  greatest  number  cf 
accidents  in  bituminous  coal  mines"  (contrary  to  the  view 
accepted  by  the  immigration  Commission),  do  not  arise 
from  "the  recklessness,  ignorance,  and  inexperience  of 
employees." 

This  opinion  is  derived  from  the  statistics  of  accidents  in 
the  United  States  and  foreign  countries.  The  comparative 
rates  of  fatal  accidents  in  American  and  foreign  coal  mines 
are  shown  graphically  in  Diagram  XXV.,  reproduced  from 

DIAGRAM  XXV. 


4 

• 

3.5 

3. 

» 

3 

- 

2J5 

2.1 

3 

2 

„ 

1.93       |. 

3 

1.71 

1.5 

to 

m 

1.6 

0 
1.46 

1 

as 

NITED  STAT 

1 

ERMANY 

*J 

DC 
0 

i 

-j 

1 
««t 

USTRIA 

1  1  1  :i  4 

iBblil 

QC  lo  1^-  let  <*j| 

0 

^ 

* 

0 

2 

•5 

*f 

2  tE  §25  li  a 

XXV.    Fatal  accident  rates  in  coal  mines  per  1000  workmen  employed 
in  the  United  States  and  foreign  countries. 

the  recent  study  of  the  Minnesota  Bureau  of  Labor  on  the 
subject  of  industrial  accidents. *  The  rate  of  fatal  accidents 
in  the  United  States  is  thrice  as  high  as  in  France  and 
Belgium,  which  shows  that  two  thirds  of  the  fatal  accidents 
in  the  American  mines  could  be  prevented.  Considering, 

1  Haynes,  loc.  tit.,  p.  140. 

»  Twelfth  Biennial  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor,  Industries  and  Com- 
merce of  the  State  of  Minnesota,,  1909-10,  p.  203. 


470  Immigration  and  Labor 

however,  that  the  natural  conditions  in  American  mines 
are  more  favorable  for  the  safe  extraction  of  coal  than  in 
any  other  country  in  the  world, x  Dr.  Holmes's  estimate  that 
three  fourths  of  all  mining  accidents  are  due  to  absence 
of  proper  precautions  is  quite  conservative. 

The  difference  between  the  accident  rate  in  the  United 
States  and  those  in  Austria  and  Russia  deserves  special 
attention,  a  large  percentage  of  American  mine  workers 
being  Austrian  and  Russian  immigrants.  The  American 
fatality  rate  is  twice  as  high  as  the  Austrian,  Of  course, 
the  popular  explanation  is,  that  the  Austrians  and  Russians 
employed  in  American  mines  do  not  understand  the  English 
language,  whereas  in  their  home  countries  thev  work  under 
the  direction  of  foremen  who  speak  their  own  languages. 
In  so  far  as  the  failure  of  foreign-born  mine  workers  to 
understand  warnings  and  instructions  given  in  the  English 
language  may  affect  the  rate  of  accidents  in  American  mines, 
the  difference  is  clearly  chargeable  to  the  carelessness,  not  of 
the  mine  workers,  but  of  the  mine  operators  who  fail  to  pro- 
vide competent  foremen  speaking  the  languages  of  their  em- 
ployees. In  Prussia,  where  a  large  and  growing  percentage 
of  the  coal  miners  are  Poles, 2  the  fatal  accident  rate  is  never- 
theless 37  per  cent  below  the  average  for  the  United  States. J 

1  United  States  Geological  Survey,  Bulletin  No.  333,  p.  13.  The 
European  experts  above  referred  to  "unanimously  reported  that  the 
natural  conditions  in  American  mines  were  much  better  than  in  Europe. 
They  found,  for  example,  that  up  to  the  present  time  Americans  were 
not  operating  in  the  very  deep  levels  of  four  thousand  feet  and  lower, 
not  uncommon  in  Europe,  where  the  task  of  supplying  fresh  air  and 
getting  rid  of  dangerous  gases  is  very  difficult.  In  America,  also,  only 
thick  seams  more  easily  ventilated  are,  as  yet,  generally  worked.  .  .  . 
Of  late  years,  with  the  gradual  exhaustion  of  higher  levels,  of  the  thicker 
seams,  and  of  the  supplies  of  supporting  timbers,  conditions  have  come 
to  resemble  more  nearly  those  found  in  Europe,  and  it  is  for  this  reason 
that  the  percentage  of  fatalities  has  so  rapidly  increased  in  the  past 
decade." — Haynes,  loc.  cit.t  pp.  141-142. 

*  See  Chapter  VIII.,  p.  182.  The  average  for  1900-1904  in  Prussia 
was  2.06  per  1000  employees. 

»  United  States  Geological  Survey,  Bulletin  No.  333,  p.  8. 


Work  Accidents  471 

This  comparison  may  be  pursued  further.  If  it  is  true 
that  the  rate  of  fatalities  in  the  United  States  is  increased 
by  the  employment  of  immigrants  from  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europe,  it  may  be  expected  that  the  rate  will  be 
higher  in  those  States  where  the  percentage  of  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europeans  is  higher  among  the  coal  miners. 
The  comparative  numbers  of  lives  lost  per  thousand  em- 
ployees and  per  one  million  tons  of  coal  mined  in  the  prin- 
cipal mining  States  during  the  twenty-year  period  1889- 
1908  are  shown  on  Diagram  XXVI,  the  distance  from  left 
to  right  representing  the  percentage  of  persons  of  Slavic 
and  Italian  parentage  among  the  miners  in  I9OO.1  These 
States  produced,  in  1908,  86.6  per  cent  of  the  total  output 
of  bituminous  coal  in  the  United  States.2 

We  find  the  highest  rate  of  fatal  accidents  per  one  million 
tons  mined,  in  Oklahoma,  with  14  per  cent  of  Southern  and 
Eastern  European  mine  workers;  next  follow  Tennessee 
and  Alabama,  with  I  per  cent  and  2  per  cent  of  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europeans  respectively.  On  the  other  hand, 
in  Pennsylvania  with  36  per  cent,  and  Illinois  with  22 
per  cent,  the  rate  of  accidents  is  much  lower,  and  ap- 
proximately the  same  as  in  Ohio  with  9  per  cent,  and 
Indiana  with  5.5  per  cent.  The  course  of  the  other  curve 
is  the  same:  West  Virginia,  Alabama,  and  Tennessee,  with 
small  percentages  of  Southern  and  Eastern  European  mine 
workers,  have  higher  fatality  rates  per  one  thousand  em- 
ployees than  Pennsylvania  and  Illinois  with  much  larger 
percentages  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans. 

1  For  rates  of  fatal  accidents  cf.  Hoffman,  loc  cit.,  p.  452;  the  percent- 
ages of  miners  of  Southern  and  Eastern  European  parentage  were 
computed  from  XII.  Census  Report  on  Occupations,  Table  41.  The 
figures  are  given  in  the  Appendix,  Table  XXVII.  The  census  classifica- 
tion of  breadwinners  by  occupation,  nativity,  and  state  makes  no  distinc- 
tion between  coal  miners  and  metalliferous  miners.  This  comparison 
accordingly  comprises  only  such  States  in  which  there  are  no  metalli- 
ferous mines,  or  the  number  of  metalliferous  miners  is  negligible,  com- 
pared with  the  number  of  coal  miners. 

3  Statistical  Abstract  of  the  United  States,  1910,  Table  120,  pp.  208-209. 


II 


Si 

sis 


1 


8.3 


472 


Work  Accidents  473 

These  comparisons  are  not  invalidated  by  the  increase 
of  the  proportion  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  among 
the  coal  miners  since  1900.  The  investigation  of  the  Immi- 
gration Commission  in  1900  found  64.3  per  cent  of  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europeans  among  the  coal  miners  of  Penn- 
sylvania, while  the  official  statistics  for  West  Virginia  in 
1908  showed  28.9  per  cent  of  the  same  races1;  and  yet  the 
average  fatal  accident  rate  per  one  thousand  employees  or 
per  one  million  tons  in  West  Virginia  was  much  higher 
than  in  Pennsylvania. 

The  Immigration  Commission  lays  great  stress  on  the 
fact  that  the  percentage  of  fatalities  among  the  foreign- 
speaking  miners  in  those  two  States  is  relatively  higher  than 
among  the  English-speaking  employees.  This  difference, 
however,  proves  nothing  without  a  further  classification 
of  both  language  groups  by  occupation.  The  distribution 
of  the  English-speaking  and  non-English-speaking  mine 
workers  on  the  scale  of  occupations  is  not  uniform,  and  there 
is  a  wide  range  of  variation  in  the  degree  of  risk  incident 
to  each  occupation.  The  influence  of  the  first  factor  will 
be  clear  from  the  following.  Machine  runners  and  car 
loaders  work  side  by  side  in  the  mine.  The  machine  runner 
is  the  man  who  runs  the  mining  machinery — necessarily  a 
skilled  miner;  the  car  loader  is  a  common  laborer.  And 
yet  we  find  that  in  1899-1908  the  proportion  of  native  white 
among  machine  runners  who  lost  their  lives  in  West  Vir- 
ginia was  80.8  per  cent,  while  the  proportion  of  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europeans  among  car  loaders  killed  was  48.4 
per  cent;  on  the  other  hand,  the  proportion  of  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europeans  among  machine  runners  killed  was 
only  6.4  per  cent,  while  the  proportion  of  native  white 
among  car  loaders  killed  was  24.3  per  cent.2  It  would  be 
absurd  to  infer  from  these  figures  that  the  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europeans  were  more  experienced  and  more  careful 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  p.  226,  Table  140;  p. 
228,  Table  143. 

>  Jloffnjan,  he  cit.,  p.  640. 


474 


Immigration  and  Labor 


than  the  native  white,  when  the  truth  is  that  there  are  few 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  among  the  machine 
runners  and  few  native  white  among  the  car  loaders.  In- 
asmuch, however,  as  there  are  several  loaders  to  one  machine 
runner,  more  loaders  are  killed  than  machine  runners.  The 
effect  of  these  arithmetical  aberrations  upon  the  general 
average  is  to  swell  the  ratio  of  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europeans  to  the  total  of  fatal  accidents. 

The  effect  of  the  nature  of  the  risk  upon  fatal  accidents 
by  lace  and  nativity  is  shown  in  Table  131. 

TABLE  131. 

NUMBER  AND  PER  CENT  DISTRIBUTION  OF  FATAL  ACCIDENTS  IN  COAL 
MINES  OF  WEST  VIRGINIA  BY  PRINCIPAL  CAUSES  AND  NATIVITY  OF 
PERSONS  KILLED,  1899-1908,  AND  PER  CENT  DISTRIBUTION  OF 
EMPLOYEES  BY  NATIVITY,  I9OO.1 


Race  or  nativity 

Per  cent  of 
employees 

Falling  coal, 
slate,  etc. 

Explosions 

Other  causes2 

Number 

s 

8 
1 

Number 

Per  cent 

Number 

Per  cent 

Native  white  

46.3 
21.8 

3-o 
28.9 

392 
207 

68 
285 

41.2 

21.8 

7-1 
29.9 

246 
130 

59 

387 

30.0 
15-8 

7-1 
47.1 

194 

84 

8 
61 

55-9 
24.2 

2-3 
17-6 

Negro  

Northern  and 
Western  Europe.  .  . 
Eastern  and  Southern 
Europe  

Total  

IOO.O 

952 

IOO.O 

822 

100.0 

347 

100.0 

If  the  "relative  number  of  fatalities  among  the  employees 
of  a  given  race  or  group  of  races"  can  "serve  as  a  valuable 
indication  of  the  extent  to  which  the  high  death-rate  in  the 
mines  is  to  be  attributed  to  the  employment  of  men  by 

1  Bulletin  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor,  No.  90,  Table  XX.,  p.  646.  Reports 
of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  p.~228,  Table  143. 

*  Cars  (inside  and  outside) ,  motors  and  machinery,  electrocution  and 
falling  into  shafts. 


Work  Accidents  475 

that  race  or  group, " J  then  the  following  conclusions  logically 
follow  from  the  preceding  table: 

1 .  While  the  recent  immigrants  contribute  no  more  than 
their  proportionate  share  of  fatalities  from  falling  coal, 
slate,  etc.,  the  high  death-rate  from  explosions  is  attribut- 
able to  them.     On  the  other  hand  native  Americans  con- 
tribute less  than  their  quota  of  accidents  from  these  causes. 

2.  The  older  immigrants  from  Northern  and  Western 
Europe  contribute  twice  their  share  of  fatalities  from  falls 
of  roofs  and  explosions,  which  indicates  that  the  employ- 
ment of  older  immigrants  is  a  menace  to  the  safety  of  the 
men  inside  the  mines. 

3.  The  native  white  contribute  more  than  their  quota 
of  fatalities  from  cars,  motors,  machinery,  and  contact  with 
electric  wires,  whereas  the  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans 
contribute  considerably  less  than  their  quota,  which  indi- 
cates that  the  high  death-rate  from  those  causes  is  at- 
tributable to  the  employment  of  men  of  native  American 
stock. 

4.  The  replacement  of  native  Americans  by  Southern 
and  Eastern  European  immigrants  who  apparently  show 
greater  aptitude  for  handling  complicated  modern  machin- 
ery than  native  Americans,  would  tend  to  reduce  the  fatality 
rate  from  cars,  motors,  machinery,  and  electric  shocks. 
On  the  other  hand  the  displaced  American  mechanics 
could  be  employed  to  advantage  as  common  laborers  in 
the  mines,  which  would  tend  to  reduce  the  fatal  accident 
rate  from  falling  roofs  and  explosions. 

The  palpable  absurdity  of  these  conclusions  proves  that 
the  premises  from  which  they  are  deduced  are  untenable. 
The  low  percentage  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans 
among  the  sufferers  from  accidents  due  to  machinery, 
motors,  etc.,  merely  indicates  that  they  do  not  come  in 
contact  with  these  death-dealing  agencies  as  often  as 
Americans.  Similarly,  the  lower  ratio  of  native  white 
among  the  sufferers  from  falling  roofs  and  explosions  is 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  p.  233. 


476  Immigration  and  Labor 

attributable  to  the  fact  that  a  large  proportion  among  them 
are  employed  in  supervisory  positions,  where  they  are  not 
exposed  to  the  ordinary  risks  incident  to  working  under- 
ground. 

It  is  sought  to  deduce  a  causal  connection  between  the 
increase  of  the  fatal  accident  rate  and  the  employment  of 
recent  immigrants  from  their  ignorance  of  mining  conditions 
which  exposes  them  to  greater  danger.  If  this  be  so,  it  is 
an  argument,  not  against  immigration,  but  against  the 
development  of  the  coal  mining  industry.  It  is  evident  that 
if  the  mining  industry  is  to  grow  apace  with  the  development 
of  the  country,  new  men  must  continually  be  engaged.  No 
one  is  born  with  mining  experience,  even  in  the  United 
States,  and  there  is  no  other  place  where  mining  experience 
can  be  gained  except  in  a  mine.  The  danger  resulting  from 
allowing  inexperienced  men,  whether  native  or  foreign- 
born,  to  work  in  a  coal  mine  merely  emphasizes  the  need 
of  providing  by  law  for  the  employment  of  a  sufficient 
proportion  of  experienced  miners  to  supervise  the  work  of 
new  employees. x  So  dangerous,  however,  are  the  working 
conditions  in  American  mines  that,  according  to  Mr. 
Hoffman,  "mine  experience,  even  of  considerable  length, 
is  not  necessarily  a  protective  factor."2  His  opinion  rests 
upon  a  classification  of  accidents  by  occupation  and  length 
of  experience.  It  appears  that  in  every  occupation  the 
majority  of  those  who  were  killed  in  West  Virginia  in  1899- 

1  Says  Mr.  John  Laing,  chief  of  the  West  Virginia  Department  of 
Mines,  in  a  letter  to  the  Immigration  Commission:  "In  our  large  mines 
where  in  the  past  labor  was  turned  loose  to  shoot  coal,  load  coal,  and 
care  for  themselves,  we  now  have  an  officer  known  as  'assistant  mine 
foreman*  employed  to  every  thirty-five  men,  who  works  in  the  mine 
and  whose  specific  duty  is  to  see  that  all  coal  is  properly  mined,  that 
all  places  are  timbered,  that  a  system  of  ventilation  is  properly  brought 
forward,  etc.,  before  a  miner  be  permitted  to  do  blasting  of  any 
kind." — Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  p.  238. 

3  "It  is  significant,"  says  Mr.  Hoffman,  "that  there  should  have 
been  43  deaths  of  men  who  had  been  at  work  from  10-14  years, 
13  deaths  of  men  with  15-19  years  of  mine  experience  and  1 1  deaths  of 
men  with  20  or  more  years'  experience." — Loc.  cit.,  p.  485. 


Work  Accidents 


477 


1908  had  an  experience  of  not  less  than  one  year,  and  in 
some  occupations  one  of  more  than  five  years,  e.  g.,  fire 
bosses  100  per  cent;  track  layers  60.8  per  cent;  machine 
runners  59.5  per  cent,  etc.  Among  the  miners,  the  most 
numerous  and  exposed  class,  39.7  per  cent  had  an  experience 
of  over  five  years. x 

The  preceding  classification  deals  with  length  of  experi- 
ence, without  regard  to  race  or  nationality.  It  might  be 
argued  that  the  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  are  handi- 
capped by  ignorance  of  the  English  language  even  after 
years  of  employment  in  the  mines  and  possibly  swell  the 
numbers  of  victims  with  long  experience.  This  supposition 
is  dismissed  by  the  West  Virginia  statistics  in  which  the 
accidents  are  classified  by  nativity  and  length  of  experience, 
as  shown  in  Table  132: 

TABLE  132. 

NUMBER  AND  PER  CENT  OF  TOTAL  ACCIDENTS  TO  COAL  MINERS,  CLASSIFIED 

BY  NATIVITY  AND   LENGTH  OF  EXPERIENCE  IN  WEST  VIRGINIA, 

1899-1908. 3 


Numbe 

r 

Per  cent 

Length  of  experience 

English- 
speaking 
white 

Southern  and 
Eastern 
European 

1 

i!« 

IP 

Southern  and 
Eastern 
Europeans 

! 

Under  I  year  

124 

ISO 

66 

18  i 

24.  4 

22.8 

1—5  years  

221 

^06 

IJC 

\2  2 

*q~4 

40.6 

1Q.8 

•14.1 

1  6O 

1  08 

4Q.7 

i^y.w 
26.O 

^7.4    ' 

Total  

686 

616 

280 

IOO  O 

IOO.O 

IOO.O 

This  table  shows  that  experience  of  the  mine  workers 
counts  for  very  little  in  fatal  accidents:  one  half  of  all 
English-speaking  mine  workers  had  had  an  experience  of 


1  Hoffman,  loc.  cit.,  Table  XVII.,  p.  643, 
d.,  Table  XIX.,  p.  645. 


478  Immigration  and  Labor 

more  than  five  years  when  they  lost  their  lives.  Of  the 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  killed,  one  fourth  had 
worked  more  than  five  years  in  the  mines  and  three  fourths 
more  than  one  year.  The  smaller  percentage  of  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europeans  who  lost  their  lives  after  an  experi- 
ence of  more  than  five  years  cannot  be  taken  as  proof  that 
inexperience  was  the  cause  of  death  in  all  other  cases:  it 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  most  of  the  Southern  and  East- 
ern European  miners  in  West  Virginia  are  recent  immigrants, 
who  for  this  arithmetical  reason  alone  must  contribute  a 
larger  number  to  the  death  roll  of  persons  with  brief  experi- 
ence. If  it  is  sought  to  explain  the  prevalence  of  more 
recent  immigrants  among  the  victims  of  accidents  by  their 
negligence,  due  to  inexperience,  it  must  follow  as  a  corollary 
that  the  higher  percentage  of  miners  of  long  experience 
among  the  English-speaking  victims  proves  them  to  be 
twice  as  careless  or  as  ignorant  as  the  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europeans.  This  assumption  does  not  agree,  however, 
with  the  fact  that  the  percentage  of  recent  employees  among 
the  victims  of  accidents  is  approximately  the  same  for 
every  language  or  race  group.  It  is  clear  that  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  English  language  gives  the  new  mine  worker 
scarcely  greater  immunity  from  accident  than  that  which 
the  law  of  chance  allows  to  the  non-English-speaking  miner. 
The  cause  of  accidents  in  coal  mines  is  not  philological, 
but  technological. 

Withal,  it  is  an  undeniable  fact  that  the  fatal  accident 
rate  has  increased  in  the  bituminous  coal  mines  of  the 
United  States  within  the  last  twenty  years,  simultaneously 
with  the  increasing  numbers  of  Slavs  and  Italians  employed 
in  the  mines.  This  coincidence  is  accepted  as  sufficient 
proof  that  the  increasing  employment  of  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europeans  in  coal  mines  has  been  the  cause  of  the 
increase  in  the  fatal  accident  rate.  This  explanation  is 
contradicted,  however,  by  the  sfatistics  of  accidents  in 
the  anthracite  coal  mines  of  Pennsylvania,  for  which  there 
are  data  going  as  far  back  as  1870.  In  1909,  60  per  cent 


I 


479 


480  Immigration  and  Labor 

of  the  inside  employees  in  the  anthracite  mines  were  of 
the  non-English-speaking  races.1  As  shown  on  Diagram 
XXVII,2  the  greatest  relative  numbers  of  fatal  accidents 
were  recorded  back  in  1870-1874,  when  the  employees 
were  all  English-speaking.  The  lowest  rate  per  one  million 
tons  mined  is  reported  for  the  year  1903,  and  the  next 
lowest  for  the  year  1909. 

In  the  face  of  this  fact,  the  increase  in  the  number  of 
recent  immigrant  employees  cannot  stand  as  an  explanation 
of  the  increase  of  the  accident  rate  in  bituminous  mines. 
The  European  mining  experts,  mentioned  before,  lay  stress 
upon  the  "  gradual  exhaustion  of  higher  levels,  of  the  thicker 
seams,  and  of  the  supplies  of  supporting  timbers,  .  .  . 
and  it  is  for  this  reason  (they  hold)  that  the  percentage  of 
fatalities  has  so  rapidly  increased  in  the  past  decade."3 

No  doubt  "contributory  negligence"  on  the  part  of  the 
Southern  and  Eastern  European  may  figure  as  a  factor  in 
many  accidents.  It  is  claimed,  e.  g.,  by  American  and 
English-speaking  miners,  that  the  lives  of  the  mine  workers 
are  endangered  by  the  carelessness  of  the  recent  immigrants 
whose  "desire  .  .  .  for  large  earnings  .  .  .  leads  them  to 
neglect  to  take  the  proper  measures  .  .  .  relative  to  tim- 
bering and  other  precautions,  for  the  reason  that  these 
measures  require  the  loss  of  time  from  their  productive 
work  and  the  consequent  decrease  in  earnings."4  This 
claim  is  nothing  but  the  outworn  common-law  defence  of 
"negligence  of  fellow-servant,"  in  an  employer's  liability 
action.  From  the  modern  point  of  view  the  employer's 
duty  to  furnish  his  employees  a  safe  place  of  work  is  not 
discharged  by  leaving  the  necessary  timbering  to  be  done 
by  volunteers  for  the  common  good  without  extra  compen- 
sation. It  is  his  duty  to  hire  special  men  for  that  work  and 
to  keep  the  mine  safe  at  his  own  expense.  Be  it  as  it  may, 

1  Report  of  the  Department  of  Mines  of  Pennsylvania,  1909,  Part  I. 
pp.  25-26.  a  The  figures  will  be  found  in  the  Appendix,  Table  XXVIII. 

*  Haynes,  loc.  cit.,  p.  142. 

*  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  6,  p.  652. 


Work  Accidents  481 

it  is  well  to  remember,  however,  that  in  those  days  when 
there  were  no  "ignorant  foreigners"  to  whom  the  responsi- 
bility for  mine  accidents  could  be  shifted,  it  was  the  "reck- 
lessness" of  the  English-speaking  miners1  that  was  to 
blame.  As  far  back  as  1875,  a  Pennsylvania  mine  inspector 
said  in  his  report:  "I  am  sorry  to  have  to  report  that  a 
majority  of  the  accidents  that  occur  in  the  coal  mines  are 
the  result  of  recklessness  of  the  workmen  themselves."2 
This  comment  was  as  general  in  the  early  reports  of  the 
Pennsylvania  state  mine  inspectors,  according  to  Dr. 
Roberts,  as  in  the  recent  reports  quoted  by  the  Immigration 
Commission.  It  is  evident  that  an  American  farmer  boy 
who  for  the  first  time  goes  down  into  a  mine  is  as  incapable 
of  a  proper  appreciation  of  the  dangers  of  mining  as  a  recent 
Slav  immigrant.  But  even  an  experienced  miner  faced 
every  day  of  his  life  with  the  "one  universal  characteristic" 
of  American  mining  conditions — "the  criminal  disregard  of 
the  considerations  of  safety"3 — at  length  comes  to  feel  that 
"a  man  may  as  well  pass  in  his  checks  that  way  as  any 
other."4  If  he  is  to  continue  as  a  miner,  he  must  develop 
a  frame  of  mind  akin  to  that  of  a  soldier  in  war-time.  While 
carelessness  on  the  part  of  the  miners  may  be  a  contri- 
butory cause  in  many  accidents,  the  "carelessness"  itself  is, 
as  Dr.  Roberts  put  it — a  "psychological  effect  of  accidents. " s 
In  the  iron  and  steel  mills  there  is  the  same  disposition 
as  in  coal  mining  to  shift  the  responsibility  for  accidents  to 
the  ignorance  of  the  "Hunkie."  Speaking  of  the  "per- 
sonal factor"  in  industrial  accidents,  Miss  Eastman  sub- 
ordinates it  to  "the  pressure  and  speed  at  which  the  plant 
is  run, — an  expression  of  the  employ er's  direct  financial 
interest  in  the  output." 

One  of  the  older  and  wiser  mill  superintendents  in  the  Pittsburgh 
District  told  me  [says  she],  that  the  one  greatest  cause  of  danger  in 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  p.  232. 
» Roberts,  loc.  cit.,  p.  154.  *  Haynes,  loc.  cit.t  p.  148. 

*  Words  of  a  miner  quoted  from  the  report  of  a  Pennsylvania  mine 
inspector,  Roberts,  loc.  cit.t  p.  154.  s  Ibid, 


482  Immigration  and  Labor 

the  steel  mills  is  the  tremendous  rush  of  the  work.  "In  the  mills  in 
England,"  he  said,  "they  begin  to  work  about  6,  stop  at  8:30  for  forty- 
five  minutes  for  the  men  to  get  breakfast;  stop  again  at  I  for  an  hour 
for  the  men  to  get  dinner,  and  stop  again  at  5 130  for  half  an  hour.  At 
these  periods  everything  stops.  The  machinery  is  quiet.  This  is  the 
reason  why  the  English  mills  do  not  produce  as  much  steel  in  the  same 
length  of  time  as  the  American  mills.  Here  the  machinery  never  stops. 
Another  shift  is  always  ready  and  waiting  to  step  into  the  place  of  the  shift 
that  is  leaving.  Not  a  moment  is  lost.  If  a  mill  stops  three  minutes 
for  repairs,  or  for  any  other  cause,  a  detailed  report  of  this  must  be 
made  by  the  man  in  charge.  If  this  happens  two  or  three  times  under 
one  man,  the  matter  will  be  taken  up  with  a  question  as  to  his  efficiency. 
Under  this  kind  of  a  drive,  how  can  anybody  be  careful?  " 

When  we  read  then,  of  a  man  who  went  up  to  make  repairs  without 
stopping  the  crane,  or  of  a  man  who  tried  to  throw  a  belt  without  slow- 
ing down  the  shaft,  we  must  not  lay  the  resulting  accident  unquestion- 
ingly  to  his  own  personal,  ill-considered  haste.  Perhaps  he  was  but  a 
part  of  a  great  machine  going  too  fast  for  safety.  Every  man  in  the 
process  must  keep  the  pace  of  the  whole.  He  can  no  more  go  his  own 
gait  than  a  spoke  in  a  wheel  can  go  its  own  gait.  * 

But  the  Southern  and  Eastern  European  is  charged  with 
more  than  ignorant  carelessness  or  passive  acquiescence 
in  dangerous  conditions, — the  very  existence  of  such  con- 
ditions "has  been  due  to  ...  his  tractability  or  sub- 
serviency": 

When  the  older  employees  have  found  unsafe  and  insanitary  working 
conditions  prevailing  in  the  mines  and  industrial  establishments,  and 
have  protested,  the  recent  immigrant  employees,  usually  through  ignor- 
ance of  mining  or  other  working  methods,  have  manifested  a  willing- 
ness to  accept  the  alleged  unsatisfactory  condition.2 

As  an  illustration  of  such  ineffective  "protests,"  the 
commission  cites  a  case  where  an  American  miner  was 
discharged  for  refusing  to  work  in  a  chamber  which  was  in 
need  of  timbering,  and  was  replaced  by  a  foreigner. 3  Similar 
examples  could,  doubtless,  be  multiplied  at  will,  considering 
the  general  disregard  for  safety  in  coal  mines.  Such  indi- 

1  Eastman,  loc.  tit.,  pp.  64,  85,  94. 

9  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  p.  501. 

*Ibid.t  vol.  6,  p.  241. 


Work  Accidents 


483 


vidual  objections,  however,  scarcely  amount  to  a  "protest." 
If  the  English-speaking  miners  had  shown  a  disposition  to 
"protest"  against  dangerous  working  conditions,  it  cer- 
tainly must  have  found  some  expression  in  their  strikes. 
We  learn  that  during  the  twenty-year  period  from  1881 
to  1900,  there  occurred  2515  strikes  in  the  coal  and  coke 
industry,  involving  14,575  establishments.  Of  the  latter 
number  there  were  nine  (p)  in  which  strikes  were  declared 
against  dangerous  working  conditions.1  These  figures  con- 
clusively prove  that  the  American  miners  made  no  concerted 
protest  against  dangerous  working  conditions  even  in  the 
early  *8o's,  when  the  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans 
employed  in  the  mines  were  but  a  handful. 

To  what  extent,if  at  all, individual  objectionsof  the  "older 
employees"  would  have  been  effective  in  advancing  the 
introduction  of  better  working  conditions,  in  the  absence 
of  Southern  and  Eastern  European  immigrant  employees, 
can  be  judged  by  a  comparison  with  another  extra-hazard- 
ous industry,  viz.,  steam  railroads,  in  which  the  proportion 
of  non-English-speaking  employees  is  very  small.* 

1  Sixteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  pp.  352-353, 
480-481. — The  objects  for  which  these  strikes  were  ordered  were  as 
follows: 


Number  of  estab- 
lishments 

Succeeded 

For  better  ventilation  

A 

•i 

The  same  and  for  repair  of  machinery  
For  change  of  machinery  

I 

I 

I 

Against  use  of  electrical  mining  machines 
without  jacketed  motors  .   ... 

I 

For  company  to  have  roadway  in  mine 
sprinkled  

I 

For  enforcement  of  mining  laws  concerning 
the  placing  of  timbers  .  . 

I 

I 

Total  

•According  to  the  census  of  1900,  the  ratio  of  non-English-speaking 
workmen  employed  on  the  railroads  was  only  7.5  per  cent. — Reports  of 
(he  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  i,  pp.  821-829. 


484  Immigration  and  Labor 

There  is  a  marked  distinction  in  this  respect  between 
different  classes  of  railroad  employees.  The  trainmen  are 
as  a  rule,  English-speaking,  the  Slavs,  Hungarians,  and 
Italians  being  employed  mainly  on  construction  work. 
In  Diagram  XXVIII.  are  plotted  the  accident  rates  per  1000 
employees  in  bituminous  and  anthracite  coal  mines  and  on 
railroads,  for  the  twenty-year  period  from  1889  to  1908. l 
The  accident  rate  for  all  railway  employees  is  not  much 
lower  than  the  rate  for  coal  miners.  But  the  fatal  accident 
rate  among  trainmen  is  a  great  deal  higher  and  has  been 
steadily  increasing  since  1894. 

The  number  of  accidents  resulting  in  personal  injuries 
to  railroad  employees  is  still  greater.  In  1891-1909  it 
varied  from  one  in  every  thirty-three,  to  one  in  every 
seventeen  employees.  The  ratio  of  injured  trainmen 
varied  during  the  same  period  from  one  in  every  twelve, 
to  one  in  eight.  It  stood  at  the  last  figure  in  1906-1908 
and  declined  to  one  in  nine  during  the  year  1909.*  This 
means  that  in  nine  years'  service  every  trainman  has  a 
probability  of  one  hundred  per  cent  to  sustain  personal 
injuries. 

The  ratio  of  native  Americans  to  all  railroad  employees 
killed  in  work  accidents,  according  to  available  informa- 
tion, was  72  per  cent  in  the  Pittsburgh  district,3  and 
62.8  per  cent  in  Illinois;  the  proportion  of  those  who  suffered 
personal  injuries  in  Illinois  was  66.6  per  cent.4  The 
trainmen  who  run  the  greatest  risk  of  death,  or  personal 
injury,  are  all  English-speaking  and  cannot  be  replaced  by 
non-English-speaking  immigrants.  Strike  statistics  show 
that  the  employees  in  all  industries  combined  under  the 
head  of  "transportation"  struck  for  212  different  causes 

1  The  figures  on  which  this  diagram  is  based  arc  given  in  the  Appendix, 
Table  XXIX. 

a  Statistical  Abstract  of  the  United  Stales,  1910,  Table  181,  p.  284. 

» Eastman,  loc.  cit.t  p.  14,  Table  3;  number  of  native  Americans— 
89,  out  of  a  total  of  123  killed  in  accidents. 

*  Fifteenth  Biennial  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  of  Illinois, 
pp.  161,  251. 


a 
fi 


• 


• 


- g 


"\W   -r 


486  Immigration  and  Labor 

in  3436  establishments,  but  the  number  of  establishments 
in  which  strikes  were  declared  against  unsafe  machinery  and 
other  dangers  incident  to  employment  was  only  seven.1 

This  comparison  may  be  extended  to  all  classes  of  em- 
ployment, loss  of  life  and  limb  being  an  incident  rather 
than  an  accident  of  modern  industry.  The  Sixteenth 
Annual  Report  of  the  United  States  Commissioner  of  Labor 
enumerates  1422  different  causes  of  strikes  for  the  twenty- 
year  period  1891-1900.  The  total  number  of  establishments 
which  were  affected  by  strikes  during  that  period  was 
117,509.  The  number  among  them  where  strikes  were  de- 
clared against  unsafe  machinery  and  other  dangers  incident  to 
employment  was  only  eighty-three. 2 

These  figures  testify  that  "acquiescence  in  dangerous 
and  unsanitary  working  conditions  "  is  the  general  attitude 
of  organized  and  unorganized  workers  in  labor  disputes. 
This  apparent  indifference  cannot  be  explained  by  the 
obstruction  of  the  Southern  and  Eastern  Europeans  be- 
cause the  majority  of  the  wage-earners  as  late  as  1900 
were  of  native  birth.3  It  may  reasonably  be  assumed  that 
organized  labor  does  not  feel  strong  enough  to  enforce 
demands  which  would  involve  large  outlays  by  employers 
for  safe  equipment  and  other  improvements.  The  indi- 
vidual workman  realizes  that  it  would  be  quixotic  on  his 
part  to  "protest"  singly  against  evils  which  organized 
labor  is  powerless  to  remedy. 

1  Sixteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Labor,  Table  X.  pp. 
510-513.  *Ibid.,  Table  XI,  pp.  519-541- 

« Hourwich,  loc.  cit.,  p.  327,  Table  VIII. 


PART  IV 

CONCLUSION 

CHAPTER  XXIII 

PROBABLE  EFFECTS  OF  RESTRICTION — A  FORECAST 

IT  was  recognized  by  the  Immigration  Commission  that  the 
industrial  expansion  of  the  preceding  twenty  years  would 
have  been  impossible  without  "the  new  immigration." 
But  the  Commission  held  "a  slow  expansion  of  industry" 
preferable  to  "immigration  of  laborers  of  low  standards."1 
The  Commission  accordingly  recommended  that  "a  sufficient 
number  be  debarred  to  produce  a  marked  effect  upon  the 
present  supply  of  unskilled  labor."2 

What  is  "a  sufficient  number"?  A  learned  advocate  of 
restriction,  Prof.  Fairchild,  referring  to  the  period  from 
December,  1907,  to  August,  1908,  when  emigration  exceeded 
immigration  by  124,124,  finds  that  "this  figure  is  almost 
infinitesimal  compared  to  the  total  mass  of  the  American 
working  people  or  to  the  amount  of  unemployment  at  a  normal 
time,1'  The  net  result  of  the  emigration  movement  of  those 
nine  months  was  tantamount  to  a  prohibition  of  immigra- 
tion, yet  it  had  "a  very  trifling  palliative  effect."  3 

The  slowing  down  of  the  pace  of  industrial  development 
must  necessarily  curtail  the  opportunities  for  advancement 
of  the  wage-earners  who  are  already  here.4 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  p.  45.       2  Ibid.,  p.  47. 

•Henry  Pratt  Fairchild:  "Immigration  and  Crises,"  The  American 
Economic  Review,  December,  1911,  p.  758. 

4  The  skilled  crafts  whose  organizations  were  urging  the  adoption 
of  the  recommendation  of  the  Commission  for  the  exclusion  of  unskilled 
immigrants  were  apparently  willing  to  swallow  the  recommendation 
in  favor  of  legislation  that  would  facilitate  the  importation  of  skilled 
labor  under  contract.  (Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission, 
vol,  i,  p.  47-) 

487 


488  Immigration  and  Labor 

On  the  other  hand,  the  unemployed  could  gain  nothing 
from  a  slow  growth  of  industry.  In  times  of  rapid  indus- 
trial expansion  the  demand  for  labor  is  more  active  than 
in  times  of  industrial  stagnation.  Inasmuch  as  unem- 
ployment is  not  due  to  an  absolute  oversupply  of  labor, 
but  results  from  seasonal  and  cyclical  variations  in  the 
general  demand  for  labor,  as  well  as  from  variations  in 
the  demands  of  individual  employers,  it  is  clear  that  these 
causes  could  not  be  removed  by  reducing  the  supply  of 
labor.  If  the  industries  of  the  United  States  can  furnish 
steady  employment  all  year  round  to  eighty  per  cent  of  all 
wage-earners  and  in  times  of  maximum  activity  to  ninety- 
five  per  cent,2  but  must  have  the  full  one  hundred  per  cent 
ready  on  call,  there  being  no  agency  for  dovetailing  the  de- 
mands of  scattered  individual  employers,  these  ratios  will 
not  be  affected  by  the  scale  of  national  production. 

If  instead  of  letting  the  number  of  factory  workers  grow 
to  seven  million  by  1909,  the  law  had  kept  it  at  5,600,000, 
as  it  had  been  in  1904,  i.e.,  twenty  per  cent  below  the  1909 
figure,  the  industrial  reserve  of  twenty  per  cent  would  not 
have  been  wiped  out,  but  would  have  only  been  smaller 
in  proportion.  Yet  the  1,120,000  irregularly  employed 
in  1904  exerted  the  same  economic  pressure  on  the 
4,480,000  who  were  employed  all  year  around,  as  the 
1,400,000  on  the  5,600,000  in  1909.  The  problem  of  the  five 
per  cent  irreducible  minimum  of  unemployed  was  no  less 
serious  when  they  were  only  280,000  in  5,600,000,  than  when 
they  grew  to  be  350,000  in  7,000,000.  The  mere  exclu- 
sion of  unskilled  immigrants,  and  even  of  all  immigrants, 
will  not  provide  employment  for  all  masons  and  carpenters 
in  the  winter,  or  for  the  full  winter  force  of  a  Wisconsin 
logging  camp  in  the  summer.  Nor  will  the  restriction  of 
immigration  revolutionize  the  world  of  fashion,  so  as  to 
permit  of  the  filling  of  orders  for  ladies'  garments  out  of 

*A11  figures  in  this  example  are  merely  estimates  based  upon  the 
statistics  of  the  XII.  and  the  XIII.  Census.  They  are  used  only  for 
purposes  of  illustration. 


Probable  Effects  of  Restriction — A  Forecast     489 

season.  In  order  to  provide  regular  employment  for  the 
industrial  reserve,  all  industries  would  have  to  be  run  upon 
a  common  time  schedule,  like  railway  trains  are  run  on 
connecting  lines.  No  plan  of  such  a  reorganization  of 
industry  has  as  yet  been  proposed  that  would  be  acceptable 
to  all  advocates  of  immigration  restriction,  let  alone  the 
proprietors  of  half  a  million  independent  mining,  manu- 
facturing, and  mercantile  establishments.  It  is  hardly 
reasonable  to  expect  a  systematic  adjustment  of  business 
activity  on  such  a  gigantic  scale  to  grow  up  spontaneously 
from  a  purely  negative  measure  shutting  out  immigration. 
As  a  theoretical  proposition,  it  seems  quite  plausible 
that  the  exclusion  of  "a  sufficient  number"  of  immigrants 
"to  produce  a  marked  effect  upon  the  supply  of  unskilled 
labor"  must  force  employers  to  pay  scarcity  rate  of  wages. 
It  is  needless,  however,  to  indulge  in  abstract  speculation 
on  the  possible  effects  of  a  reduced  supply  of  unskilled 
immigrant  labor,  when  such  a  condition  actually  exists  in 
the  United  States  throughout  the  agricultural  sections. 
Few  immigrants  seek  employment  on  the  farms.  At  the 
census  of  1900  the  total  number  of  Southern  and  Eastern 
European  male  farm  laborers  in  the  United  States  was  only 
3 7, 40 1.1  The  number  of  all  foreign-born  male  farm  laborers 
had  actually  decreased  from  1890  to  i9oo.2  Moreover,  there 
is  a  constant  stream  of  native  labor  from  the  farms  to  the 
cities,  which  has  led  to  an  actual  decrease  of  the  rural 
population  in  many  agricultural  counties.  Farmers  gen- 
erally complain  of  scarcity  of  farm  labor  during  the  agri- 
cultural season.  Nevertheless,  the  wages  of  farm  laborers 
are  lower  than  the  wages  of  unskilled  laborers  in  mines  and 
mills,  where  the  proportion  of  recent  immigrants  is  rapidly 
increasing.  Scarcity  of  labor  has  not  forced  the  farmer  to 
pay  scarcity  wages,  but  has  merely  retarded  the  growth  of 
farming.  In  many  places  the  area  under  cultivation  has 
actually  decreased.  On  the  other  hand,  the  problem  how 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  I,  Table  A,  pp.  821-829. 

2  Occupations,  XII.  Census,  Table  XXXIV,  p.  cviii. 


490  Immigration  and  Labor 

to  increase  production  with  the  same  supply  of  labor  has 
been  solved  by  labor-saving  machinery.  The  shutting- 
out  of  unskilled  immigrants  would  have  similar  effects  in 
manufacturing  and  mining.  The  labor  that  would  thus  be 
displaced  would  form  one  substitute  for  immigration. 

The  coal  mines  of  Alabama  and  other  Southern  States 
which  have  failed  to  attract  immigrants  utilize  the  labor 
of  farmers  and  their  sons.  The  2,300,000  tenant-farmers 
in  particular  offer  great  possibilities  as  an  industrial  re- 
serve available  during  the  winter  months  when  the  de- 
mand for  labor  in  the  coal  mines  is  most  active.  The  farm 
being  their  main  source  of  subsistence,  they  are  able  and 
willing  to  offer  their  labor  during  the  idle  winter  months 
more  cheaply  than  freshly-landed  immigrants.  The  efforts 
of  trade-union  organizers  among  this  class  of  English- 
speaking  workers  have  met  with  scant  success.  With  the 
farmer  who  works  in  a  mine  during  the  winter  months, 
the  dominating  interest  is  his  farm,  whereas  his  interest 
in  his  employment  is  but  transitory.  He  may  not  return 
to  the  mine  the  next  winter;  he  accordingly  expects  no 
benefit  from  an  eventual  gain  in  wages,  whereas  a  pro- 
tracted strike  may  deprive  him  of  his  earnings  which  are 
needed  immediately  to  pay  interest  on  a  mortgage  or  to 
buy  a  machine.  He  is  therefore  reluctant  to  enter  into  a 
labor  contest.  The  substitution  of  the  cheap  labor  of  the 
American  farmer  for  the  labor  of  the  Slav  or  Italian  immi- 
grant would  tend  to  weaken  the  unions  and  to  keep  down 
wages. 

The  discontinuance  of  fresh  supplies  of  immigrant  labor 
for  the  cotton  mills  of  New  England  would  give  a  new 
impetus  to  the  development  of  the  cotton  industry  in  the 
South,  where  there  is  an  abundant  supply  of  child  labor. 
The  shortage  of  immigrant  labor  could  also  be  made  up  for  in 
part  by  the  available  reserve  of  cheap  female  labor. 

The  employment  of  all  these,  substitutes  for  regular 
wage-earners  certainly  has  its  limitations.  Summer  is  the 
most  active  season  in  many  manufacturing  industries. 


Probable  Effects  of  Restriction — A  Forecast     491 

Other  industries  are  localized  and  cannot  spread  out  to 
agricultural  districts.  But  there  is  in  the  United  States, 
as  in  all  industrial  countries,  a  steady  flow  of  labor  from 
rural  to  urban  districts.  In  the  absence  of  immigration 
of  unskilled  laborers  the  depopulation  of  the  rural  districts 
would  be  accelerated.  A  stimulated  movement  of  labor 
from  the  farm  to  the  factory  must  act  as  a  drawback  on  the 
growth  of  farming,  and  the  prices  of  foodstuffs  would  rise 
in  consequence,  which  would  tend  to  offset  the  advantages 
to  the  wage-earners  from  a  possible  rise  of  wages. 

Still,  should  all  the  substitutes  for  immigrant  labor  prove 
inadequate  for  the  needs  of  the  employers,  it  does  not 
necessarily  follow  that  scarcity  prices  would  rule  in  the 
American  labor  market.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 
capital  is  international. 

Billions  of  American  capital  are  already  invested  in 
Mexican  and  other  foreign  undertakings.  At  present  this 
is  but  a  minor  item  compared  with  the  profits  of  American 
industries  annually  reinvested  at  home.  If,  however,  a 
scarcity  of  labor  were  created  in  the  United  States,  more 
American  capital  would  seek  investment  abroad.  Instead 
of  investing  their  profits  in  new  mines  and  mills  in  the  United 
States,  American  capitalists  would  export  their  money  to 
build  up  new  enterprises  in  countries  with  cheap  labor. 

The  increased  investment  of  American  capital  in  the 
industrial  development  of  foreign  countries  with  cheap 
labor  must  eventually  react  upon  labor  conditions  in  the 
United  States.  Certain  of  the  most  important  American 
industries  depend  in  part  upon  the  export  trade.  At  present 
the  great  smelting  works  of  New  Jersey  import  ore  from 
Mexico  and  employ  Slav  immigrants  to  smelt  and  refine  it 
into  lead  and  copper,  a  great  deal  of  which  is  then  exported 
to  Europe.  Should  the  immigration  of  Slav  laborers  be 
barred  the  lead  and  copper  producers  could  accommodate 
themselves  to  the  situation  by  erecting  plants  in  Mexico  and 
exporting  the  refined  lead  and  copper  directly  to  London. 
Such  a  plan  would  not  be  a  new  departure  in  the  world  of 


492  Immigration  and  Labor 

industry.  American,  English,  French,  Belgian,  and  German 
manufacturers  in  the  past  found  it  more  profitable  to  estab- 
lish factories  in  Russia  than  to  export  their  products  to  that 
country.  A  scarcity  of  labor  in  the  United  States  would 
induce  many  American  manufacturers  to  extend  that  policy. 

Such  an  emigration  of  American  capital  would  materially 
affect  the  export  trade  of  the  United  States  and  eventually 
throw  out  of  employment  a  number  of  American  wage- 
earners  dependent  upon  that  trade. 

It  is  evident  that  while  restriction  of  immigration  can 
limit  the  supply  of  labor,  it  is  powerless  to  prevent  a  cor- 
responding limitation  of  the  demand  for  labor. 

The  Immigration  Commission  believed  that  "a  slow  ex- 
pansion of  industry,"  in  the  absence  of  "the  immigration 
of  laborers  of  low  standards,"  would  raise  "the  American 
standard  of  wages."  Yet  the  Commission  did  not  explain 
how  a  mere  Platonic  desire  to  maintain  a  high  standard  of 
living  could  of  itself  raise  the  rates  of  wages,  unless  the 
relation  of  demand  and  supply  in  the  labor  market  were 
favorable  to  the  wage-earner.  The  recent  crisis  has  fur- 
nished a  practical  illustration  bearing  upon  this  point. 
When  the  operations  of  the  steel  mills  were  reduced,  a 
great  many  men  were  laid  off.  The  companies,  however, 
offered  their  skilled  men  positions  as  laborers.1  Neither 
their  high  American  standard  of  living,  nor  their  high 
standard  of  wages,  nor  their  efficiency  enabled  them  to 
insist  upon  higher  wages  than  those  which  had  been  paid 
to  unskilled  laborers  before  the  crisis.  "A  slow  expansion 
of  industry"  is  synonymous  with  an  inactive  demand  for 
labor,  and  it  is  an  elementary  maxim  of  Political  Economy 
that  an  inactive  demand  for  labor  is  unfavorable  to  in- 
creases in  wages. 

1  "The  few  unskilled  places  that  were  open  were  filled  by  Americans 
who  were  normally  skilled  workmen,  but  who  at  the  time  of  the  depres- 
sion were  compelled  to  take  any  kind  of-work  they  could  get. "—Reports 
of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  8,  pp.  39,  40. 

"Skilled  American  employees  .  .  .  were  glad  to  turn  to  unskilled 
occupations  at  twelve  to  fifteen  cents  an  hour." — Ibid.,  p.  597. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE  LESSONS  OP  THE  WAR 

THE  World  War  offered  an  opportunity  to  test  the  effects 
of  restriction  of  immigration  under  the  most  favorable 
conditions.  During  the  war  immigration  was  reduced  to  a 
very  low  level.  Departing  aliens  at  times  outnumbered  both 
the  newcomers  and  returning  immigrants.  Though  the  out- 
break of  the  war  was  followed  by  a  year  of  industrial  depres- 
sion in  this  country,  the  United  States  soon  became  the  chief 
producer  of  war  supplies  for  the  Allied  nations.  Beginning 
with  the  spring  of  1916  the  supply  of  labor  in  the  United 
States  fell  short  of  the  demand  in  the  labor  market.  The 
entrance  of  the  United  States  into  the  war  withdrew  more 
than  two  million  workers  from  industry.  The  government 
assumed  the  function  of  regulating  wages  in  the  leading 
industries,  with  the  co-operation  of  the  officers  of  the  Amer- 
ican Federation  of  Labor.  Prominent  men  of  avowed  labor 
sympathies  were  placed  at  the  head  of  the  War  Labor  Board. 
If  the  economic  condition  of  the  American  wage  earner  can 
be  improved  by  suspension  of  immigration,  here  was  the 
opportunity  to  observe  its  beneficial  effects. 

Indeed,  the  final  report  of  the  Commission  on  Industrial 
Relations,  prepared  by  Mr.  Basil  M.  Manly,  Director  of 
Research  and  Investigation,  contains  the  following  state- 
ment: "The  great  diminution  of  immigration  as  a  result  of 
the  European  war,  has  already  begun  to  show  its  salutary 
effects."  l  The  report  does  not  specify  the  particulars  in 
which  these  "salutary  effects"  had  manifested  themselves 
by  August  9,  1915,  which  is  its  official  date.  It  baldly  asserts 
that  the  "evidence  presented  to  the  Commission"  warrants 

1  Industrial  Relations:  Final  Report  and  Testimony,  vol.  i,  p.  144 


494  Immigration  and  Labor 

the  conclusion  "that  the  enormous  influx  of  immigrants  dur- 
ing the  past  twenty-five  years  has  been  the  largest  single  factor 
in  preventing  the  wage  scale  from  rising  as  rapidly  as  food 
prices."  l  The  evidence  was  not  published  by  the  Commis- 
sion; reference  is  only  made  in  the  Director's  letter  of  sub- 
mittal  to  reports  presented  to  the  Commission  by  Professor 
Lauck  and  Mr.  Sydenstricker.  The  data  contained  in  these 
reports  were  perused  by  them  in  a  book  published  in  19 17.* 
This  is  what  they  actually  have  to  say  on  the  subject: 

The  recent  advances  in  wage  rates  which  have  been  occasioned  by 
the  unusual  demand  for  labor  at  a  time  of  restricted  immigration  con- 
stitute, of  course,  a  certain  advantage  in  economic  status  to  wage  earn- 
ers in  many  instances.  .  .  .  How  far  these  increases  in  rates,  aside  from 
the  increases  in  earnings  made  possible  by  steady  employment  during 
a  period  of  great  industrial  activity,  have  kept  pace  with  increases  in 
prices  of  necessaries  and  of  the  ordinary  comforts  used  by  wage-earning 
families,  is  impossible  of  statement  until  accurate  statistics  are  ob- 
tained and  published.8 

A  vast  amount  of  statistical  data  on  every  aspect  of  the 
economic  situation  has  since  been  published.  A  brief  sum- 
mary of  t'he  available  evidence  will  be  sufficient  to  disprove 
the  optimistic  assurance  of  the  Industrial  Commission. 

At  the  annual  meetings  of  the  American  Economic  and 
the  American  Statistical  Association  held  at  Atlantic  City 
in  December,  1920,  two  series  of  index  numbers  of  physical 
production  were  presented,  one  by  Dr.  Walter  W.  Stewart, 
the  other  by  Dr.  Edmund  E.  Day.  Though  their  indices 
differ  for  particular  years,  yet  both  show  a  growth  of  pro- 
duction during  the  war  period  much  in  excess  of  the  rate  of 
the  preceding  quadrennial  period. 

A  comparative  summary  of  the  principal  items  of  both 
series  for  the  years  1910,  1914,  and  1918  is  presented  in 
Table  133  next  following,  where  the  index  numbers  are  con- 

1  Industrial  Relations:  Final  Report  and  Testimony,  vol.  i,  p.  144. 
s  W.  Jett  Lauck  and  Edgar  Sydenstricker:    Condition  of  Labor  in 
American  Industries,  p.  xi. 
9  Ibid.,  pp.  70-71. 


The  Lessons  of  the  War 


495 


verted  to  the  base  of  1914  as  100.  The  comparative  growth 
of  manufactures,  mining,  agriculture,  and  population,  during 
the  war  and  the  preceding  period  beginning  with  1899,  is 
shown  graphically  in  Diagram  XXIX,  reproduced  from  Doc- 
tor Day's  Chart  A. 

TABLE  133 

INDICES  OF  MANUFACTURES,  MINING,  AND   TRANSPORTATION,   IQIO, 
1914, 


Manufactures 

Mining 

Year 

TVAn«JTV>rfr  at  inn 

Day's 

Stewart's 

Day's 

Stewart's 

1910.  .  .  . 

97 

98 

IOO 

94 

96 

1914.... 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

IOO 

1918  

125 

144 

138 

132 

139 

This  unparalleled  growth  of  industry  was  marked  by  ex- 
traordinary profits.  The  following  analysis  is  quoted  from 
a  survey  presented  to  the  United  States  Railroad  Labor 
Board  by  Prof.  W.  Jett  Lauck,  on  behalf  of  a  number  of 
labor  unions.  His  evidence  is  taken  from  the  financial  re- 
ports of  205  large  corporations,  with  an  aggregate  capital 
stock  of  over  $5,000,000,000.  Their  annual  net  income  in- 
creased from  an  average  of  8.7  per  cent  for  the  pre-war 
period  1912-1914,  to  an  average  of  23.9  per  cent  for  the 
war  period  1916-1918. 

After  all  expenses  of  operation  and  maintenance  had  been  paid  (says 
Professor  Lauck),  after  all  charges  for  replacement  of  capital  had  been 
set  aside — in  fact,  after  every  conceivable  or  imaginary  expense  had 
been  met — these  great  groups  of  corporations,  controlling  the  various 
products  essential  to  our  life,  made  profits  which  were  sufficient  to  re- 
place the  entire  value  of  the  capital  stock  within  a  period  of  slightly 
over  four  years.  This  is  proved  by  their  own  published  reports. 

l, "An  Index  Number  of  Production,"  by  Walter  W.  Stewart.  Amer- 
ican Economic  Review,  March,  1921,  p.  68.  "The  Measurement  of 
Variations  in  the  National  Real  Income,"  by  Edmund  E.  Day.  Quar- 
terly of  the  American  Statistical  Association,  March,  1921,  p.  555. 


496 


300 


Immigration  and  Labor 
DIAGRAM  XXIX. 


200 


1099 


1905 


1910 


1915 


1919 


XXIX.    Indices  of  Physical  Production  for  Agriculture,  Mining  and 
Manufacture,  1899-1919. 

Those  corporations  were  not  at  all  exceptional.  The  ex- 
traordinary profits  of  industry  during  the  war  appear  in  a 
document  submitted  to  the  Senate  by  the  Treasury  Depart- 
ment, entitled  "Corporate  Earnings  and  Government  Rev- 
enue." This  document  shows  the  incomes  of  approximately 
20,000  corporations.  Altogether  they  earned  in  1917  an 
average  return  on  capital  stock  of  33.5  per  cent,  after  all 
taxes  had  been  deducted. 

Over  one-fourth  of  these  corporations,  5,724  in  number,  showed  net 
profits  of  over  50  per  cent  on  capital  stock.  And  over  one-tenth  of  them 
(2,030)  showed  net  profits  of  over  100  per  cent.  In  other  words,  there 
were  over  5,000  corporations  which,  in  1917,  earned  over  one-half  the 
value  of  their  capital  stock  and  over  2,000  that  earned  the  entire  value 
in  a  single  year.1 

1  W.  Jett  Lauck:  The  Relation  Between  Wages  and  the  Increased  Cost 
of  Living,  pp.  7,  9-12. 


The   Lessons   of  the  War  497 

The  preceding  analysis  was  made  by  a  representative  of 
organized  labor.  The  same  conclusions,  however,  are  reached 
by  Professor  Friday,  who,  in  his  study  of  the  relations  between 
profits,  wages,  and  prices,  endeavors  to  take  a  judicial  atti- 
tude, although  inclining  at  times  toward  the  capital  side. 
The  net  income  of  all  corporations,  as  reported  to  the  Bureau 
of  Internal  Revenue,  amounted  in  1914  approximately  to 
$3,700,000,000;  in  1916  it  more  than  doubled,  reaching  well 
nigh  $8,600,000,000.  When  the  United  States  entered  the 
war,  the  corporations  were  made  to  yield  to  the  government 
in  excess  profit  taxes  about  $2,000,000,000,  and  yet  their 
profits  for  the  year  1917  remained  at  the  level  of  the  pre- 
vious year.  Of  course  the  net  earnings  of  the  various  classes 
of  corporations  widely  varied.  The  earnings  of  mining  and 
manufacturing  corporations  in  1917  were  nearly  330  per  cent 
of  those  of  1913,  the  largest  pre-war  year.  A  classification 
of  manufacturing,  mining,  and  mercantile  corporations  ac- 
cording to  the  percentage  ratio  of  their  net  income  to  in- 
vested capital  shows  that  more  than  one-half  of  the  total 
net  income  was  earned  by  concerns  which  made  30  per  cent 
or  over.  The  profits  of  railroads  and  other  public  utility 
corporations,  being  regulated  by  the  public  authorities,  did 
not  rise  to  such  heights,  yet  in  1916  they  were  53  per  cent 
above  the  1913  level,  and  in  1917  they  still  remained  30  per 
cent  above  the  pre-war  level.  "The  popular  impression," 
sums  up  Professor  Friday,  "that  the  war  has  brought  a  large 
increase  in  profits  is  fully  borne  out  by  the  facts.  The 
growth  has  been  large,  even  after  the  payment  of  income  and 
excess  profits  taxes."  1 

A  glance  at  Diagram  XXIX  will  show  how  far  the  growth 
of  population  lagged  behind  the  industrial  expansion  of  the 
war  years.  This  was  directly  due  to  the  decrease  of  immi- 
gration. The  annual  net  immigration  or  emigration  of  bread- 
winners from  July  i,  1914,  to  June  30,  1919,  is  shown  in 
Table  134. 

1  David  Friday:  Profits,  Wages,  and  Prices,  pp.  14,  15,  18,  36,  38,  39. 


498  Immigration  and  Labor 

TABLE  134. 

NET  IMMIGRATION  OR  EMIGRATION  OF  BREADWINNERS, 

Year  ended  Net  immigration  (+) 

June  30th  or  emigration  (-) 

1915 

1916 

1917 

1918 

1919 

Total +138,149 

The  excess  of  all  alien  arrivals  over  all  departing  aliens,  in- 
cluding dependents  ("persons  without  occupation,  mostly 
women  and  children,"  in  official  terminology)  aggregated 
during  the  same  period  431,884.  Thus,  the  additions  to  the 
population  through  immigration  during  the  war  period  rep- 
resented mostly  dependents  of  immigrants  who  had  previously 
settled  in  the  United  States.  The  addition  of  138,149  immi- 
grant breadwinners  was  by  far  insufficient  to  make  up  for  the 
mortality  among  earlier  immigrants.2 

The  effects  of  the  cessation  of  immigration  upon  the  state 
of  the  labor  market  are  reflected  in  the  statistics  compiled 
by  the  New  York  State  Industrial  Commission.  From  the 
month  of  March,  1916,  to  the  end  of  the  year  1918,  the  sup- 
ply of  labor  registered  at  the  public  employment  offices 
varied  from  97.1  per  cent  to  47.1  per  cent  of  the  demand  for 
labor.3 

Such  was  the  relation  of  supply  and  demand  at  the  gate- 
way of  the  United  States.  That  this  condition  was  not 
exceptional,  is  evidenced  by  the  suspension  of  the  contract- 
labor  law  in  1917,  1918,  1919,  and  1920,  in  order  to  enable 

1  See  Appendix,  Table  XXXI. 

2  During  the  ten  years  from  July  I,  1910,  to  June  30,  1920,  the  excess 
of  arriving  over  departing  aliens  aggregated  3,123,000  persons  (see  Ap- 
pendix, Table  XXX.).     The  increase  of  the  foreign-born  population 
from  the  XIII.  to  the  XIV.  Census  (1910-1920)  was  only  358,000  (see 
Table  7  on  p.  88).    The  decrease  of  the  number  of  foreign-born  by 
death  thus  amounted  to  2,765,000. 

8  See  Appendix,  Table  XXXII. 


The   Lessons  of  the   War  499 

mine  operators  and  other  employers  in  the  Southwest  to 
import  Mexican  laborers  under  contract.1  During  those 
four  years  50,800  Mexican  contract  laborers  were  imported 
under  departmental  regulations  which  were  tantamount  to 
peonage.2  This  measure  is  justified,  in  a  report  of  a  com- 
mittee appointed  by  Ex-Secretary  of  Labor  Wilson,  by  "the 
fact  that  immigration  from  Europe  had  practically  ceased." 
It  is  explained  that  "a  dire  and  imperative  need  was  met  in 
making  the  exceptions  and  permitting  Mexican  labor  to  enter 
this  country  on  easy  terms  to  meet  the  abnormal  demand  for 
common  labor."  It  should  be  remembered  that  Mr.  Wilson 
was  made  the  first  Secretary  of  Labor  as  the  spokesman  for 
organized  labor,  having  been  a  vice-president  of  the  Amer- 
ican Federation  of  Labor  and  a  district  president  of  the 
United  Mine  Workers.  Obviously  such  a  striking  departure 
from  the  policy  of  organized  labor  must  have  been  necessi- 
tated by  a  genuine  scarcity  of  labor.8 

The  effects  of  the  war  upon  the  state  of  the  labor  market 
during  the  war  are  well  summarized  in  the  following  excerpt 
from  a  recent  book  on  war-time  strikes: 

In  times  of  emergency  and  consequent  abnormal  labor  demand,  there 
arises  a  competition  for  men  which  disturbs  to  a  marked  degree  the  wage 
relationships  of  normal  times.  For  normal  times,  as  our  economic 
system  is  constituted,  have  always  meant  times  of  labor  surplus.  .  .  . 
When,  however,  the  demand  for  men  far  exceeds  the  supply,  employers 
compete  among  one  another  and  are  willing  in  many  cases  to  pay 
wages  even  higher  than  union  rates.  In  open-shop  industries  men  were 
offered  these  increased  rates  irrespective  of  their  union  membership. 
...  A  further  consequence  of  the  abnormal  war  conditions  was  an  un- 
precedented mobility  of  labor.  Every  method,  including  patriotic  ap- 
peals in  the  press  and  on  public  platforms,  was  used  to  bring  home  to 
the  workers  of  other  localities  the  need  of  men  in  places  where  war 

1  Monthly  Labor  Review,  November,  1920,  p.  223. 

2  See  note  in  the  Appendix. 

8  Still,  the  same  Secretary  Wilson,  in  a  press  statement  under  date  of 
January  10,  1918,  said  that  there  was  "an  ample  supply  of  labor  both 
for  the  army  and  for  industry."  (The  Evening  Telegram,  New  York, 
January  13,  1918.)  Apparently,  however,  such  official  pronouncements 
must  be  taken  with  a  grain  of  salt. 


500  Immigration  and  Labor 

material  was  being  produced.  Influenced  both  by  the  patriotic  motive 
and  the  desire  for  better  wages,  men  and  women  left  their  homes  and 
traveled  to  distant  cities.  This  movement  of  the  workers  was  acceler- 
ated by  the  action  of  employers  who,  not  content  with  elaborate  news- 
paper advertisements  offering  high  rates  of  wages,  even  went  as  far 
as  to  send  labor  scouts  all  over  the  country.  Both  of  these  practices 
had  to  be  curtailed  by  the  government  when  toward  the  end  of  the 
war  the  competition  for  men  became  fiercer  than  ever  and  the  U.  S. 
Employment  Service  was  organized  in  an  effort  to  control  the  situation. 
.  .  .  Workers  not  only  left  their  homes  but  they  changed  from  one  in- 
dustry to  another  with  a  freedom  never  before  known.  General  wage 
levels  were  a  matter  of  common  knowledge.  And  the  worker  knew  not 
only  the  pay  of  men  in  his  own  industry  but  also  that  of  workers  in  many 
other  trades.1 

According  to  scholastic  theory,  "with  employers  com- 
peting more  eagerly  to  get  workmen,  with  the  better  em- 
ployers ready  to  pay  appreciably  higher  wages  than  before, 
with  resident  laborers  not  subject  to  fresh  competition  from 
abroad,  the  time  is  ripe  for  a  real  increase  of  wages."  2  Did 
this  ideal  combination  of  economic  factors  during  the  late 
war  actually  produce  the  "salutary  effects"  anticipated  by 
the  Commission  on  Industrial  Relations? 

Applying  the  standard  chosen  by  the  Commission,  viz.,  the 
rise  of  the  wage  scale  apace  with  food  prices,  we  find  that  the 
purchasing  power  of  union  wages  considerably  declined  dur- 
ing the  war,  as  shown  in  Table  135. 

A  painstaking  study  of  the  movement  of  real  wages  gauged 
by  retail  prices  of  food  has  been  made  by  Professor  Douglas 

1  Alexander  M.  Bing,  War-time  Strikes,  pp.  196-197.  According  to  a 
special  study  of  mobility  of  labor  made  by  the  United  States  Bureau  of 
Labor  Statistics  for  the  decade  1910-1919,  "each  year,  on  the  average, 
the  number  of  persons  who  quit,  who  were  laid  off  or  were  discharged, 
as  well  as  the  number  who  had  to  be  hired,  was  much  larger  than  the 
total  number  of  workers  on  the  force  at  any  one  time."  During  the 
period  from  the  entrance  of  the  United  States  into  the  war,  to  the  armis- 
tice (i.e.,  from  May,  1917,  to  October,  1918),  the  monthly  mobility  rates 
were  far  above  the  average.  ' '  Mobility  of  Labor  in  American  Industry, ' ' 
by  Paul  F.  Brissenden  and  Emil  Frankel:  Monthly  Labor  Review,  June, 
1920,  pp.  41-43. 

"Hourwich's  Immigration  and  Labor,"  by  Robert  F.  Foerster:   The 
Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics,  August,  1913,  p.  668. 


The  Lessons  of  the  War  501 

TABLE  135. 

PURCHASING    POWER    OF    UNION    WAGE    RATES,    MEASURED    BY    RETAIL 
PRICES   OF  FOOD,    1913-19!  8.1 

Year  Per  hour  Per  week 

1913  100         100 

1914  ioo         99 

1915  101         101 

1916  94          93 

1917  78          77 

1918  79          77 

and  Miss  Lamberson.  They  have  arrived  at  the  following 
conclusions  concerning  the  effects  of  the  war  upon  the  con- 
dition of  the  American  wage  worker: 

All  the  evidence  seems  to  indicate  that  at  the  termination  of  the 
great  war  the  return  in  commodities  which  the  American  workman 
received  for  an  equal  length  of  time  worked  (one  hour)  was  from  7  to 
17  per  cent  less  than  it  was  before  the  sharp,  upward  movement  of 
prices  in  1916.  The  purchasing  power  of  the  established  week's  work, 
moreover,  was  from  10  to  20  per  cent  less  than  in  1915.  American  labor, 
as  a  whole,  therefore,  cannot  legitimately  be  charged  with  having  prof- 
iteered during  the  war.  Rather,  like  Alice  in  Wonderland,  it  was 
compelled  to  run  faster  in  order  to  stay  in  the  same  place.2 

The  material  for  these  conclusions  was  taken  from  the 
wage  statistics  of  ten  leading  industries.  The  authors,  there- 
fore, caution  the  reader  against  generalization  from  their  re- 
sults without  certain  reservations,  of  which  the  following  are 
the  most  important : 

1  Monthly  Labor  Review,  March,  1919,  p.  120.    The  United  States 
Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  has  expressed  the  view  that  union  rates  of 
wages  are  merely  minimum  rates  and  that  in  practice  union  workers 
earn  more  than  that  minimum.     Other  students,  however,  take  the 
opposite  view.     "The  union  rates  of  pay  are  the  so-called  minimum 
rates.    As  a  matter  of  experience,  however,  these  minimum  rates  are 
usually  the  prevailing  rates."     Hugh  S.  Hanna  and  W.  Jett  Lauck: 
Wages  and  War,  p.  2.    This  view  is  concurred  in  by  Mr.  Bing,  an  em- 
ployer of  labor,  of  large  business  experience,  who  served  the  govern- 
ment during  the  war.     Bing,  loc.  tit.,  p.  196. 

2  "The  Movement  of  Real  Wages,"  by  Paul  H.  Douglas  and  Frances 
Lamberson :   The  A  merican  Economic  Review,  September,  1 92 1 ,  pp.  425- 
426. 


502  Immigration  and  Labor 

The  industries  covered  do  not  include  such  war-time  industries  as 
munitions  plants.  Some  of  the  occupations  within  these  industries 
enjoyed  increases  in  wages  more  than  sufficient  to  compensate  for  the 
increase  in  the  cost  of  living.  On  the  other  hand,  neither  are  the  rail- 
road workers  and  the  coal  miners  included,  and  their  wages  notoriously 
lagged  behind  the  increase  in  prices.  Farm  laborers  also  lost  during  the 
war  period.1 

Still,  in  recent  studies  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor 
Statistics,  and  in  the  compilations  of  the  National  Industrial 
Conference  Board,  retail  prices  of  food  alone  have  been  con- 
sidered unsatisfactory  as  a  measure  of  the  cost  of  living, 
inasmuch  as  they  do  not  reflect  the  changes  in  other  items  of 
the  family  budget,  notably  rent.2  The  adequacy  of  other 
standards,  however,  has  likewise  been  questioned.3  Profes- 
sor Litman,  in  his  study  of  prices  during  the  war,  comes  to 
the  following  conclusions: 

As  to  any  definite  conclusions  regarding  increased  cost  of  living  and 
the  effect  of  this  increase  upon  the  status  of  the  workingman  and  his 
family,  one  may  subscribe  without  reservation  to  the  statements  of 

1  "The  Movement  of  Real  Wages,''  by  Paul  H.  Douglas  and  Frances 
Lamberson:  The  American  Economic  Review,  September,  1921,  pp.  421- 
422. 

•According  to  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  the 
average  cost  of  housing  for  thirty-two  cities  showed  practically  no  change 
from  1913  to  the  end  of  1917;  in  December,  1918,  it  increased  9.2  per 
cent  from  the  1913  average.  The  increase  in  rents  came  as  the  after- 
math of  the  war.  Monthly  Labor  Review,  July,  1921,  p.  112. 

*  "At  the  present  time,  index  numbers  of  the  cost  of  living,  like  all 
other  index  numbers,  are  still  in  the  experimental  stage  of  development. 
They  cannot  yet  be  considered  instruments  of  precision  like  thermome- 
ters or  micrometer  calipers.  And  no  one  is  at  this  time  justified  in  sit- 
ting with  an  eye  peeled  on  the  index  number  of  the  cost  of  living  and 
measuring  its  movement  in  one  direction  or  another,  and  believing  that 
whatever  the  index  registers  is  above  question  or  criticism.  For  retail 
price  quotations  of  standardized  goods  and  services  are  not  easy  to 
collect,  and  when  one  index  number  is  compared  with  another,  small 
but  not  unimportant  discrepancies  frequently  appear.  .  .  .  They  are 
due  to  differences  in  the  manner  of  collecting  price  quotations,  in  the 
instructions  to  enumerators,  in  the  training  and  judgment  of  the 
enumerators,  and  in  the  kinds  of  goods  and  services  that  are  included  in 
the  survey  by  each  agency."— Leo  Wolman:  "The  Cost  of  Living  and 
Wage  Cuts,"  The  New  Republic,  July  27,  1921. 


The  Lessons  of  the  War  503 

the  United  States  Commissioner  of  Labor  Statistics,  that  after  all  these 
years  of  investigation  and  statistical  toil  in  the  cost-of-living  field,  we 
don't  know  clearly  the  difference  between  the  higher  cost  of  living  and 
the  cost  of  higher  living.1 

Yet,  after  a  careful  examination  of  all  available  data,  Pro- 
fessor Litman  cautiously  concludes  that  "it  does  not  seem 
that  wages  rose  as  rapidly  as  the  prices  of  commodities.2 

This  view  is  concurred  in  by  those  who  speak  for  organized 
labor.  The  following  is  from  Prof.  Lauck's  statement  be- 
fore the  United  States  Railroad  Labor  Board,  quoted  on  a 
previous  page: 

An  examination  of  the  experience  of  every  industry  shows,  practi- 
cally without  exception,  that  wage  increases  have  lagged  behind  price 
increases,  and  usually  very  far  behind.  .  .  .  They  [the  workers]  have 
merely  struggled  as  best  they  could  and  in  the  only  way  they  could  to 
keep  their  old  standards  of  living.  In  this  struggle  they  have  met  with 
only  very  partial  success.  For  the  great  body  of  wage  earners,  wages 
have  not  kept  step  with  prices.  As  a  result,  labor  as  a  class  is  now 
worse  off  than  it  was  before  the  war.  Almost  without  exception  a 
day's  wage  buys  less  than  it  did  in  1912  to  1914.  In  other  words,  in 
the  distribution  of  the  income  of  the  country,  labor  is  receiving  a 
smaller  proportion  than  it  did  before  the  war,  while  capital — in  the  form 
of  profits,  interest,  and  rent — is  receiving  a  very  much  larger  pro- 
portion.3 

On  the  other  hand,  the  same  statistical  material  leads  Pro- 
fessor Friday  to  the  opposite  conclusion,  viz.,  "that  the  real 
wages  of  labor  have  risen,  and  are  higher  to-day  than  they 
were  in  1914."  4  But  at  the  end  of  the  same  chapter,  he 
qualifies  this  general  statement  as  follows: 

There  are  so  many  different  kinds  of  labor,  so  many  different  kinds  of 
wage  payment,  and  so  many  different  rates  of  pay,  that  the  task  of 
obtaining  a  general  view  of  the  course  of  wages  is  considered  by  experts 
to  be  one  of  the  most  difficult  and  complicated  scientific  undertakings 

1  Simon  Litman:   Prices  and  Price  Control  in  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States  During  the  World  War,  p.  201. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  197. 

3  Loc.  cit.,  p.  5. 

*  Friday:  Profits,  Wages,  and  Prices,  p.  107. 


504  Immigration  and   Labor 

in  the  whole  field  of  economics Consequently  all  general  statementa 

regarding  wages,  of  which  many  are  always  appearing  in  print  and  on 
the  platform,  should  be  accepted  with  extreme  caution.1 

His  own  computation  of  the  increase  in  wage  rates  and 
employment  of  from  ten  to  twelve  million  workers  shows 
that  the  yearly  earnings  per  employee  increased  from  1913 
to  1917  slightly  over  30  per  cent,2  whereas  it  appears  from 
other  sources  that  the  cost  of  living  during  the  same  period 
increased  42  per  cent.3 

The  most  conclusive  corroboration  of  the  decline  in  real 
wages  is  furnished  by  the  investigations  of  the  Bureau  of 
Child  Hygiene  of  New  York  City,  which  show  a  decided  in- 
crease of  the  proportion  of  malnourished  school  children  dur- 
ing the  World  War.  The  figures  are  presented  in  Table  136. 

TABLE  136. 

PROPORTION  OF  MALNOURISHED  SCHOOL  CHILDREN  IN  THE  BOROUGH  OF 
MANHATTAN,   NEW  YORK  CITY.4 

Year  Per  cent 

I9H 5 

1915 6 

1916 12 

1917 21 

This  condition  was  not  peculiar  to  New  York  City  only. 
Dr.  Thomas  D.  Wood,  in  an  address  delivered  before  the 
National  Council  of  Education,  February  28,  1918,  estimated 
"that  between  15  and  25  per  cent  of  our  school  children  are 
undernourished."5 

^  Was  this  lagging  of  wages  behind  the  advancing  cost  of 
living  due  to  the  failure  of  the  wage  workers  to  "insist"  upon 
a  higher  rate  of  wages—to  put  it  in  the  language  of  the  eco- 

1  Friday:  Profits,  Wages,  and  Prices,  pp.  no-ill. 
8  Ibid.,  p.  122. 

'  Monthly  Labor  Bulletin,  February,  19*1,  p.  61. 
4  "What  Is  Malnutrition?"  by  Lydia  Roberts.     Children's  Bureau, 
Publication  No.  59,  p.  7. 
1  Ibid.t  pp.  7,  19. 


The  Lessons  of  the  War  505 

nomic  experts  of  the  Immigration  Commission?  The  statis- 
tics of  strikes  during  the  world  war  prove  that  labor  did 
not  submissively  acquiesce  in  the  terms  offered  to  it  by 
employers. 

In  the  period  from  1881  to  1905  there  occurred  on  an  aver- 
age 1,532  strikes  a  year.  During  the  three  years  1916-1918 
the  number  of  strikes  averaged  more  than  twice  as  many, 
viz.,  3,697.  The  annual  average  number  of  strikers  during 
the  decade,  preceding  the  predominance  of  the  "new  immi- 
gration" was  267,000,  and  in  the  first  decade  of  its  ascend- 
ancy 344, ooo. 1  During  the  years  1916-1918,  the  annual 
average  number  of  strikers  rose  to  i,3io,ooo,2  i.e.,  391  per 
cent  above  the  average  of  1886-1895,  whereas  the  num- 
ber of  persons  engaged  in  manufacturing  and  mechanical 
pursuits,  trade,  and  transportation,  increased  from  the  X. 
to  the  XIII.  Census  (1880-1910)  only  208  per  cent.3  Nor 
were  those  strikes  unorganized  outbursts  of  inarticulate  dis- 
content. The  percentage  of  strikes  in  which  the  workers 
were  members  of  unions  rose  from  82  in  1915  to  90  in  1917, 
and  remained  at  83  in  1918. 4 

Moreover,  strikes  were  not  the  only  means  by  which  labor 
was  able  to  assert  its  claims: 


During  the  war  the  principle  of  collective  bargaining  was  of  necessity, 
albeit  in  many  cases  rather  grudgingly,  recognized  by  all  employers 
engaged  on  direct  government  work  or  in  the  production  of  essentials. 
The  Quartermaster  Corps,  the  Ordnance  Office,  the  Emergency  Fleet 
Corporation  of  the  Shipping  Board,  the  National  War  Labor  Board, 
the  Fuel  Administration,  and  many  other  government  agencies,  sought 
to  secure  greater  and  more  continuous  production  by  means  of  collective 
agreements  covering  wages.5 


1  See  Table  104,  on  p.  345. 

2  Alexander  M.  Bing:   War-time  Strikes,  pp.  292-293. 

3  XIII.  Census  Reports,  vol.  iv,  p.  41. 
*  Bing,  loc.  cit.,  p.  297. 

5  Royal  Meeker,  Commissioner  of  Labor  Statistics:  "Employees 
Representation  in  Management  of  Industry,"  Monthly  Labor  Review, 
February,  1920,  p.  2. 


506 


Immigration  and  Labor 


Neither  could  the  presence  of  the  "un-Americanized"  for- 
eign worker  serve  as  an  explanation  for  the  decline  of  real 
wages.  It  has  been  brought  out,  on  the  basis  of  the  calcula- 
tions of  the  Bureau  of  Applied  Economics,  that  whereas  the 
real  wages  of  common  laborers  in  the  iron  and  steel  industry — 
of  whom  64  per  cent  are  foreign  born — have  gone  up,  those  of 
locomotive  firemen — of  whom  84  per  cent  are  native-born 
Americans — have  declined  to  a  point  31  per  cent  below  "the 
minimum  budget  under  American  standards."  1 

Among  the  potent  factors  in  the  decline  of  real  wages 
must  be  noted  the  movement  of  labor  from  agriculture  to 
urban  industries  in  response  to  the  attraction  of  higher 
wages.  In  consequence,  agricultural  production  during  the 
war  barely  kept  pace  with  the  growth  of  population,2  while 
the  demand  for  breadstuff s  was  increased  by  exports  abroad, 
as  indicated  in  Table  137.  The  great  interests  which  control 

TABLE  137. 

WHEAT  PRODUCED,  EXPORTED,  AND  RETAINED  FOR  CONSUMPTION,  FISCAL 
YEARS    I9II-I9I8.3 


Millions  of  bushels 

Years  end< 

;d  June  30 

Increase  (+) 
or  decrease  (  —  ) 

1911-1914 

1915-1918 

Per  cent 

Produced  l  

2  7  en 

3IQO 

-1-   16 

Exported,  domestic  2  

4,-ie 

OI  "? 

-j-IIQ 

Domestic,  retained  for  consumption.  .  . 

2,315 

2,275 

—      2 

Per  cent  exported  

16 

2O 

*» 

»  The  production  is  of  the  calendar  year  preceding  the  fiscal  year 
1  including  wheat  flour  reduced  to  wheat. 

the  agricultural  produce  market  were  thereby  enabled  to 
raise  the  prices  of  food.    What  the  wage  earner  gained  in 

1  Editorial  in  The  New  Republic,  February  25,  1920,  p.  373.— XIII. 
Census  Reports,  vol.  iv,  Table  VI:  Laborers  in  blast  furnaces  and  steel 
rolling  mills,  iron  foundries,  and  other  iron  and  steel  factories;  loco- 
motive firemen  (computed). 

9  See  Diagram  XXIX. 

8  Statistical  Abstract  of  the  United  States,  1918,  p.  559.  For  statistics 
of  exports  of  other  breadstuffs,  see  Appendix,  Table  XXXIII. 


The   Lessons   of  the   War  507 

money  wages,  he  was  forced  to  surrender  in  the  higher  prices 
of  necessities  of  life.  This  fact  is  established  by  Prof.  Wesley 
C.  Mitchell's  study  of  prices  during  the  war,  from  which 
Table  138  is  compiled. 

TABLE  138. 

INDEX  NUMBERS  OF  THE  YEARLY  PRODUCTION  AND  PRICES  OF  VEGETABLE 
PRODUCTS,    1913-1918. l 

Years  Production  Prices] 

1913  100  100 

1914  106         95 

1915  112         98 

1916  100  in 

1917  107         173 

1918  106         191 

The  next  question  to  be  considered  is,  What  were  the  sub- 
stitutes for  immigrant  labor  during  the  war  years?  The 
movement  of  workers  from  agriculture  to  urban  industries 
has  already  been  referred  to.  It  struck  the  public  eye  in 
the  migration  of  Negroes  from  the  agricultural  South  to  the 
industrial  East  and  Middle  West.  The  volume  of  that 
migration  is  officially  estimated  at  from  400,000  to  500,000. 
"Shortage  of  labor  in  Northern  industries"  is  given  as  "the 
direct  cause  of  the  increased  Negro  migration  during  the  war 
period."  "The  agricultural  regions  of  the  Southern  states 
began  to  suffer  for  want  of  the  Negro  worker."  2 

1  "History  of  Prices  During  the  War,"  by  Wesley  C.  Mitchell:   W.  I. 
B.  Price  Bulletin  No.  I,  p.  45. — "In  vegetable  husbandry  the  harvest 
depends  partly  upon  the  acreage  sown,  which  the  farmer  can  control, 
but  quite  as  much  upon  the  weather.    Thus  the  annual  supply  of  veg- 
etable products  increased  in  the  dull  year  1914  and  increased  largely 
again  in  1915.    Nineteen  sixteen  was  a  bad  year,  and  all  the  efforts  to 
encourage  agriculture  in  1917  and  1918  did  not  bring  the  harvests  close 
to  the  1915  record."     (Ibid.,  p.  46.) 

2  ' '  The  Negro  at  Work  During  the  World  War ' ' :  Department  of  Labor 
Division  of  Negro  Economics,  George  E.  Haynes,  Director.     Second 
Study  on  Negro  Labor,  p.  10.    See  also:  Emmett  J.  Scott:   Negro  Mi- 
gration During  the  War,  pp.  3,  14. — According  to  a  preliminary  state- 
ment issued  by  the  Bureau  of  the  Census,  the  Negro  population  of 
Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  and  Louisiana  decreased 
from  1910  to  1920  by  142,598.    On  the  other  hand,  of  the  total  numerical 
increase  in  the  Negro  population  of  the  United  States  during  that  de- 


508  Immigration  and   Labor 

Another  substitute  for  immigrant  labor  was  found  in  the 
employment  of  women.  The  statistics  on  the  subject  are 
scattered  in  government  publications.  An  illustration  is  fur- 
nished by  the  Annual  Report  of  the  Director-General  of  Rail- 
roads for  1919,  from  which  we  learn  that  in  October,  1918, 
the  number  of  women  employed  on  tbe  railroads  had  in- 
creased, from  the  entrance  of  the  United  States  into  the  war, 
by  about  70,000,  which  represented  an  addition  of  225  per 
cent.1 

The  increased  employment  of  children  in  industry  during 
the  war  emergency  was  still  another  substitute  for  immigrant 
labor.  The  subject  is  dealt  with  in  a  report  of  the  Children's 
Bureau,  from  which  the  following  is  condensed : 

By  the  latter  part  of  1915  the  effect  of  foreign  orders  for  war  goods 
was  beginning  to  make  itself  felt  in  the  increased  employment  of  chil- 
dren. Beginning  with  the  autumn  of  1915  an  unprecedented  rise  began 
in  the  number  of  children  entering  gainful  employment,  and  heavy  in- 
creases were  practically  everywhere  recorded  for  1916  and  1917,  even 
before  the  United  States  entered  the  war.  After  the  entrance  of  the 
United  States  into  the  war  the  number  of  children  taking  out  employ- 
ment certificates  continued  to  rise.  The  forces  at  work  pushing  chil- 
dren into  industry  included  the  growing  cost  of  the  necessities  of  life  com- 
bined, in  many  cases,  with  the  absence  on  military  duty  of  members  of 
the  family  who  had  previously  contributed  to  its  support.  High  wages 
offered  by  employers  hard  pressed  for  help  proved  a  powerful  magnet, 
drawing  into  business  and  industry  many  children  under  sixteen  who 
in  normal  times  would  have  remained  in  school.  In  several  cities  the 
increase  in  1918  was  so  striking  as  to  arrest  attention  even  in  that  year 
of  generally  large  increases.  In  Washington,  D.  C.,  there  was  an  in- 
crease of  more  than  163  per  cent  in  1917-18  (July  1st  to  June  3Oth) 
over  1916-17.  In  Louisville,  Kentucky,  there  was  an  increase  in  1918 
of  52  per  cent,  following  an  increase  in  1917  of  174  per  cent,  so  that  the 


cade,  69  per  cent  took  place  in  the  North,  although  its  Negro  popula- 
tion in  1920  was  only  14  per  cent  of  the  total  for  the  United  States. 
In  several  of  the  Northern  states  the  rates  were  extraordinarily  large, 
e.g.,  in  Pennsylvania,  46.7  per  cent;  in  Ohio,  67.1  per  cent;  in  Michi- 
gan, 251  per  cent;  in  Illinois,  67.1  per  cent. 
1  Monthly  Labor  Review.  March,  1920,  p.  156 


The  Lessons  of  the  War  509 

number  of  children  receiving  employment  certificates  was  in  1918  over 
four  times  as  great  as  in  1916.  In  Philadelphia  an  increase  of  82  per 
cent  in  1917  was  followed  by  a  still  further  increase  of  15  per  cent  in 
1918.  It  should  be  kept  in  mind  that  the  figures  here  given  relate  only 
to  children  legally  certificated,  and  give  no  indication  of  the  numbers 
going  to  work  without  complying  with  the  law.  Reports  from  labor 
commissioners  and  factory  inspectors  indicated  the  difficulty  experi- 
enced during  the  war  years  in  adequately  administering  child-labor 
laws.  Parents  and  children,  tempted  by  the  high  wages  offered  the 
children  at  a  time  when  the  excessive  cost  of  living  presented  a  serious 
problem,  would  connive  at  evasions  of  the  law  in  order  to  have  the  chil- 
dren work  in  factories  and  munitions  plants.  In  Philadelphia  violations 
of  the  child-labor  law  were  four  times  as  great  in  1917  as  in  1916.  In 
inspections  made  by  the  Children's  Bureau  of  sixty-three  shipyards 
where  steel  ships  were  being  built,  approximately  60  per  cent  of  the 
children  found  at  work  who  claimed  to  be  sixteen  and  were  without 
certificates  were  actually  only  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  of  age.  The 
reply  of  the  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Industrial  Commission  of  Wis- 
consin to  an  inquiry  sent  out  in  1918  by  the  Children's  Bureau  in  regard 
to  this  subject  pointed  out  the  fact  that  "The  general  effect  of  the  war 
upon  the  enforcement  of  the  child-labor  law  has  been  to  increase  the 
difficulty  of  enforcing  the  law.  The  scarcity  of  adult  labor  has  made 
the  employer  more  ready  to  take  minors  into  his  employ.  Many  em- 
ployers now  employ  children  who  have  never  done  so  before  to  any 
extent."  x 

What  is  the  lesson  that  can  be  drawn  from  the  experience 
gained  in  the  late  war?  Amidst  the  present  industrial  crisis 
one  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  this  is  but  one  of  the 
cyclical  disturbances  of  the  capitalistic  system  which  will  be 
followed  by  resumption  of  "business  as  usual."  There  will 
be  profits  which  will  seek  investment  in  new  fields.  Prior  to 
the  war  most  of  that  surplus  was  applied  to  the  expansion  of 
American  industry,  which  created  a  demand  for  immigrant 
labor.  If  restriction  of  immigration  is  to  become  the  per- 
manent policy  of  the  United  States,  our  recent  war  experience 
does  not  warrant  the  assumption  that  the  resulting  scarcity 
of  labor  will  inure  to  the  benefit  of  the  American  wage  worker. 

1  "Trend  of  Child  Labor  in  the  United  States,  1913-1920,"  by  Nettie 
McGill.  Monthly  Labor  Review,  April,  1921,  pp.  6-10. 


Immigration  and   Labor 

It  seems  likely  that  the  restriction  of  immigration  of  labor 
from  Europe  will  lead  to  emigration  of  American  capital  to 

Europe. 

That  this  is  not  mere  speculation,  appears  from  an  official 
report  of  the  Commercial  Secretary  of  the  British  Embassy 
in  Berlin,  who  states  that  arrangements  have  been  in  progress 
between  American  capitalists  and  German  corporations,  look- 
ing toward  the  investment  of  American  capital  in  German 
industry.  The  electrical  and  textile  industries  and  shipping 
are  mentioned.1 

The  decline  of  real  wages  during  the  late  war  is  merely  a 
repetition  of  the  story  of  the  Civil  War;  the  cause  of  it  has 
been  stated  in  a  previous  chapter.2  The  bargaining  power 
of  the  wage  earner  does  not  extend  to  the  market  in  which 
he  appears  as  a  consumer.  Advances  in  wages  come  as  a 
result  of  the  slow  process  of  collective  bargaining,  involving 
the  use  of  the  cumbersome  machinery  of  arbitration,  with 
occasional  resort  to  industrial  warfare,  whereas  the  prices  of 
commodities  consumed  by  the  wage  earner  are  controlled  by 
monopolistic  combinations,  which  promptly  add  every  ad- 

1  General  Report  on  the  Industrial  and  Economic  Situation  in  Germany 
in  December,  1920,  p.  6.  Presented  to  Parliament  by  Command  of  His 
Majesty.  London,  1921. — In  a  press  dispatch  cabled  from  Paris  under 
date  of  September  n,  1921,  it  was  reported  that  an  agreement  was 
signed  between  representatives  of  a  big  American  syndicate  and  the 
Archduke  Frederick  of  Austria  and  his  family,  by  which  the  syndicate 
took  over  the  whole  of  the  Archduke's  estates  in  the  dismembered 
Austrian  Empire.  These  estates  include  the  rich  steel  works  and  mines 
at  Teschen,  vast  forest  lands  stretching  across  many  miles  of  several 
new  Central  European  republics,  farms,  factories,  etc.  The  value  of 
the  property  is  conservatively  estimated  at  $200,000,000.  In  the  syn- 
dicate which  is  taking  the  control  of  this  property  are  mentioned  names 
prominent  in  American  financial  circles.  The  negotiations  began  in 
the  summer  of  1919.  An  arrangement  was  made  in  October,  1919, 
whereby  the  Archduke  was  to  transfer  his  various  properties  and  in- 
terests to  a  corporation  which  was  then  organized  in  Switzerland.  The 
deal  involves  litigation  in  the  courts  of  the  new  republics,  and  ex- 
premier  Viviani  of  France  is  reported  to  have  been  retained  as  counsel 
to  represent  the  claims  of  the  Austrian  Archduke  before  the  League  of 
Nations. 

*  See  p.  306. 


The  Lessons  of  the  War  511 

vance  in  wages  to  the  market  price  of  the  finished  product.1 
Thus  the  raise  of  wages  of  one  group  of  workers  is  in  effect 
charged  up  to  the  working  class  as  a  whole. 

The  leak  is  in  the  control  of  prices.  The  government,  dur- 
ing the  war,  assumed  the  authority  to  regulate  prices,  but  it 
delegated  this  authority  to  representatives  of  the  interests 
which  were  to  be  regulated.2  The  profiteering  which  resulted 
from  the  methods  of  price  control  adopted  by  the  various 
war  agencies,  was  exposed  in  a  report  submitted  by  the 
Federal  Trade  Commission  to  the  Senate  in  the  summer  of 
1918.  The  profits  assured  to  the  big  interests  were  "enor- 
mous ...  far  beyond  anything  that  was  necessary  to  keep 
men  in  industry  and  to  stimulate  their  initiative  and  enter- 
prise." 3  What  is  wanted  in  order  to  secure  to  the  worker  a 
real  advance  in  wages,  is  regulation  of  profits  in  the  interest 
of  the  consumers,  of  whom  the  wage  earners  constitute  the 
most  numerous  single  group. 

Restriction  of  the  supply  of  labor  does  not  touch  the  prob- 
lem of  price  control.  Immigration  laws  can  prevent  the 
American  capitalist  from  employing  foreign  labor  in  the 
United  States.  But  with  the  present  rates  of  exchange  he 
may  find  it  as  profitable  to  employ  the  same  labor  in  Europe 
in  the  manufacture  of  goods  for  the  world  market.  The  re- 
duction of  the  supply  of  labor  will  be  met  by  a  reduction  of 
the  demand  for  labor.  Restriction  of  immigration  will  merely 
speed  the  advance  of  financial  imperialism. 

1  "Wage  earners,  as  soon  as  they  could  make  their  economic  demands 
felt,  thereupon  received  wage  increases  so  that  they  might  in  a  measure 
cope  with  the  advance  in  the  cost  of  living.  This  meant  increased  labor 
costs  to  the  producers  and  middlemen,  and  they  instantly  advanced 
prices  again.  Almost  without  exception,  these  price  advances  were  out 
of  all  proportion  to  the  increase  in  labor  costs.  This  necessitated  further 
wage  increases  to  labor,  and  we  find  the  vicious  circle  established,  with 
the  profiteers  invariably  in  command  of  the  situation." — "Profiteers," 
by  W.  Jett  Lauck:  The  Socialist  Review,  July,  1920,  p.  52. 

1  "Most  of  the  important  positions  in  the  Food  Administration  were 
entrusted  to  successful  organizers  and  administrators  of  private  busi- 
ness enterprises." — Litman:  loc.  cit.,  p.  211. 

*  Friday:  loc.  cit.,  p.  155. 


Appendix 


IN  ANSWER  TO  CRITICS1 

THE  first  edition  of  this  book  was  attacked  by  two  authors 
of  books  on  immigration.  This  record  of  the  critics  calls 
for  an  examination  of  their  objections. 

Prof.  Fairchild  goes  at  it  with  the  habits  acquired  in  mark- 
ing examination  papers.  It  could  not  escape  his  trained  eye 
that  the  name  of  Prof.  Willcox  was  misspelled  (with  one  "1" 
instead  of  two).  The  error  is  repentantly  admitted,  and  has 
been  corrected  in  the  present  edition.  He  is  less  fortunate, 
however,  in  other  attempts  of  a  similar  kind.  Thus  he  finds 
fault  with  the  remark  in  the  footnote  on  p.  60  that  the  con- 
clusion of  the  Immigration  Commission  that  "'the  employ- 
ment of  the  wife,  or  keeping  boarders  or  lodgers,  is  less  fre- 
quent among  the  native-born  of  foreign  father'  ...  is  de- 
rived from  the  reports  in  just  four  families,  whose  heads 
are  native-born  of  foreign  father."  He  has  taken  the  pains 
to  look  up  the  reference,  and  announces  to  have  found  that 
there  were  26  such  families  instead  of  4.  Examination  of 
Table  44,  on  p.  310  of  the  volume  quoted  shows,  however, 
in  the  column  headed  "number  of  wives  having  employment 
or  keeping  boarders  or  lodgers,"  exactly  4  such  wives.  As 
there  is,  presumably,  one  wife  to  each  family,  this  is  equiva- 
lent to  four  families.  The  critic  has  evidently  been  misled 
by  the  figure  26,  which  is  shown  in  another  column  headed 
"number  of  selected  families,"  for  the  "total  native-born  of 
selected  families." 

This  desire  to  pick  flaws  reaches  a  climax  on  p.  762  of 
Prof.  Fairchild's  review.  In  Table  8  the  author  has  copied 
from  the  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  the  sta- 

1  Henry  Pratt  Fairchild,  in  The  National  Municipal  Review,  vol.  ii, 
(1913)- — Robert  F.  Foerster,  in  The  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics, 
August,  1913. 


Appendix 

tistics  of  the  movement  of  third-class  passengers  between 
the  United  States  and  European  ports  during  the  calendar 
years  1899-1909.  The  number  of  west-bound  passengers  is 
reported  to  have  fallen  from  1,378,000  in  1907,  to  420,000  in 
1908,  which  shows  a  decline  of  058,000-,  the  net  immigration, 
i.e.,  the  excess  of  east-bound  over  west-bound  passengers  for 
the  year  1908,  is  237,000.  These  figures  are  commented 
upon  by  the  author  as  follows : 

During  the  industrial  crisis  of  1908,  immigration  dropped  at  once 
nearly  a  million,  compared  with  the  high-water  mark  of  the  previous 
year. . . .  The  result  was  a  net  loss  of  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  million  through 
emigration  (p.  92). 

Prof.  Fairchild  has  not  troubled  himself  to  look  at  Table  8, 
instead  of  which  he  has  made  a  computation  of  his  own  from 
some  other  source — he  does  not  take  the  reader  into  his 
secret — and  has  obtained  the  figures  859,642  and  41,198,  re- 
spectively, instead  of  those  commented  upon  by  the  author. 
On  this  ground  the  author  is  charged  with  "intent  to  mis- 
lead." The  American  academic  world  prides  itself  upon  its 
"catholicity":  there  are  two  sides  to  every  question,  etc. 
But,  when  met  by  heterodox  opinion,  the  priest  of  the  Tem- 
ple of  Wisdom  loses  his  scholarly  poise  and  falls  into  the  ways 
of  the  vulgus  profanum. 

Concerning  the  merits  of  the  criticisms,  it  must  be  noted 
that  both  reviewers  reject  the  statistical  method  of  treat- 
ment of  the  subject  of  immigration.  Prof.  Fairchild  exhorts 
against  "the  besetting  sin  of  the  professional  statistician,  the 
assumption  that  nothing  is  true  which  cannot  be  proved  by 
statistics"  (p.  763).  He  is  seconded  by  Dr.  Foerster,  who 
believes  that  "we  must  go  heavily  armed  with  hypotheses. 
.  .  .  For  to-day  [he  says]  guarded  deductive  reasoning  is  in- 
dispensable, and  often  by  appropriate  tests  is  found  valid" 
(pp.  670,  671). 

It  will  be  remembered  that  a  Commission  was  appointed 
by  Congress  to  investigate  the  immigration  question,  and 


Appendix  517 

that  after  nearly  three  years  of  study  the  Commission  brought 
out  a  report  recommending  restriction  of  immigration,  in 
support  of  which  it  presented  many  volumes  of  statistical 
material.  This  evidence  is  ruled  out  by  the  learned  econo- 
mists, who  prefer  to  go  back  to  deductive  reasoning  and 
hypotheses.  Is  it  because  they  realize  that  the  truth  of  the 
conclusions  of  the  Commission  "cannot  be  proved  by  sta- 
tistics ' '  ?  Still,  since  other  university  professors  who  directed 
its  investigations  tried  to  prove  the  case  for  restriction  of 
immigration  by  statistical  evidence,  it  was  incumbent  upon 
the  negative  side  to  show  that  their  statistics  had  failed  to 
establish  the  truth  of  their  contentions. 

Let  us  consider,  however,  whether  deductive  reasoning 
would  do  better  than  the  inductive  method.  The  prerequisite 
for  the  application  of  the  deductive  method  is  the  existence 
of  axioms  and  postulates  based  upon  common  observation 
of  facts.  In  pure  mathematics  these  facts  are  few  and  sim- 
ple, and  are  within  the  daily  experience  of  every  person. 
Economic  science,  on  the  contrary,  deals  with  a  great  num- 
ber of  complex  phenomena  which  are  not  within  the  knowl- 
edge of  everybody.  The  so-called  deductive  Political  Econ- 
omy is  in  reality  also  based  upon  observed  facts,  but  the 
field  of  observation  is  confined  to  the  narrow  environment  of 
the  scholar.  A  pertinent  illustration  is  the  theory  of  wages 
to  which  both  reviewers  swear  allegiance,  viz.,  that  the  de- 
mand for  labor  at  periods  of  shortage  of  labor  "must  of 
necessity  have  raised  the  wages  of  laborers  already  in  the 
country,  if  the  foreign  sources  of  supply  had  been  cut  off."  l 
The  experience  of  labor  in  the  late  war,  as  well  as  in  the  Civil 
War,  has  discredited  this  theory.  Mere  facts,  however,  have 
no  place  in  the  speculative  theory  of  the  reviewers. 

What  importance  can  it  have — says  Dr.  Foerster — to  ask  whether 
wages  in  an  immigrant  occupation  are  higher  or  lower  now  than  they 
once  were?  Legislators  must  ask,  how  does  unrestricted  immigration 
affect  wages  (p.  658). 

1  Fairchild,  loc.  cit.,  p.  760. — See  also  Foerster,  loc.  citn  p.  668. 


518  Appendix 

Obviously  he  thinks  that  that  question  can  be  answered 
by  intuition,  without  a  comparative  study  of  the  actual 
ratfes  of  wages.  Economists  have  not  agreed,  however,  upon 
the  premises  from  which  the  legislators  could  readily  deduce 
an  answer  satisfactory  to  Dr.  Foerster.  Prof.  Commons, 
who  made  a  study  of  immigration  for  President  McKinley's 
Industrial  Commission,  reached  the  conclusion  that  immi- 
grants come  in  response  to  demand  for  labor,  which  is  de- 
pendent upon  industrial  expansion,  and  that  when  the  ex- 
pansion of  industry  is  strong,  "there  is  no  overcrowding  of 
the  labor  market"  and  "the  new  labor  as  well  as  the  existing 
labor  may  secure  advances  in  wages"  (see  pp.  114,  302). 
In  order  to  answer  Dr.  Foerster's  hypothetical  question,  the 
legislators  must  therefore  first  ascertain  the  following  facts : 

(1)  Is  American  industry  expanding  fast  enough  to  create 
a  demand  for  immigrant  labor  or,  on  the  contrary,  is  there 
an  overcrowding  of  the  labor  market  ? 

(2)  Has  immigrant  labor,  as  well  as  native  labor,  actually 
secured  advances  in  wages,  or  has  immigration  retarded  the 
advance  of  wages  ? 

Answers  to  these  questions  imply  that  very  "historical 
comparison"  which  is  spurned  by  Dr.  Foerster  (p.  657). 
He  claims  that  the  Immigration  Commission  attempted  to 
study  the  movement  of  wages  in  connection  with  immigra- 
tion, and  indulges  in  the  following  speculation: 

If  wages  declined  as  immigrants  entered  a  field  and  underbid  the 
workers,  that  would  presumably  prove  that  immigration  lowers  wages" 
(p.  658). 

This  hypothesis  merely  proves  that  Dr.  Foerster  speaks 
of  the  reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission  without  hav- 
ing familiarized  himself  with  them.  The  Commission  never 
attempted  a  historical  study  of  wages,  nor  has  it  proved 
Dr.  Foerster's  hypothesis.  The  burden  of  proof  is  obviously 
on  the  restrictionist,  who  contends-  that  contemporary  immi- 
gration is  responsible  for  low  wages.  The  author's  task  has 
been  purely  negative,  to  show  the  lack  of  evidence  to  support 


Appendix  519 

the  contentions  of  the  restrictionists.  How  was  he  to  go 
about  it?  We  are  taught  by  Dr.  Foerster  that  "wherever 
wages  change  we  must  note  what  else  characteristically 
changes"  (p.  670).  In  conformity  with  this  rule,  the  author 
compared  the  wages  of  immigrant  and  native  railway  men 
for  a  number  of  years.  Census  statistics  of  wages  in  manu- 
factures were  compared  by  states  in  parallel  columns  with 
percentages  of  foreign-born.  If  wag;es  declined  as  immi- 
grants entered  a  field,  states  with  a  large  percentage  of 
immigrants  would  show  lower  average  earnings  than  those 
with  a  smaller  percentage  of  immigrants.  Likewise,  the 
movement  of  wages  of  railway  employees  for  a  period  of 
years  would  show  a  greater  advance  in  those  occupations  in 
which  native  Americans  predominate  than  in  those  in 
which  immigrants  are  employed.  This  is,  however,  not  the 
case. 

Both  reviewers  find  fault  with  the  author  for  making  com- 
parisons of  money  wages  "without  reference  to  the  relative 
cost  of  living."  That  the  author  is  fully  aware  of  this  factor 
the  reader  can  see  from  the  following  sentence,  appearing  on 
p.  294:  "A  rise  or  a  fall  in  money  wages  is  no  indication  of 
an  increase  or  decrease  of  the  resources  of  the  wage-earners, 
unless  coupled  with  comparative  statistics  of  the  cost  of 
living."  But  when  the  movement  of  wages  is  compared  by 
occupations  for  a  number  of  years,  the  change  in  the  cost  of 
living  affects  all  workers  alike  and  may,  therefore,  be  elim- 
inated. The  defects  of  our  statistics  of  the  cost  of  living  do 
not  permit  of  a  thoroughgoing  comparison  of  real  wages 
over  different  sections  of  the  country.  But,  relying  upon 
Dr.  Hearing's  conclusion  in  hi's  Wages  in  ike  United  States, 
"that  average  wages  are  rather  constant  for\  given  industry 
from  state  to  state,"  we  may  properly  infer  that  the  cost  of 
living  must  likewise  vary  but  little  from  state  to  state. 
From  such  data  as  are  available,  it  does  not  appear  that 
immigration  has  had  a  depressing  effect  upon  real  wages. 
In  the  woolen  mills,  "since  the  immigrants  from  southern 
and  Eastern  Europe  and  Asiatic  Turkey  have  begun  to  enter 


52O  Appendix 

the  unskilled  occupations  in  large  numbers,  the  percentage 
of  increase  in  the  wages  of  unskilled  operatives  has  been 
greater  than  the  percentage  of  increase  in  the  rates  of  skilled 
workers,  who  are  practically  all  of  the  English-speaking 
races"  (p.  390).  Mr.  Fitch,  in  his  study  of  the  steel  workers 
for  the  Pittsburgh  Survey,  has  brought  out  the  fact  that  the 
wages  of  the  unskilled  immigrants  have  kept  pace  with  the 
cost  of  living,  whereas  the  wages  of  the  skilled  native  workers 
have  been  reduced  (see  pp.  404-409).  Comparisons  of  the 
standard  of  living  of  the  workers  at  different  periods  be- 
ginning with  1800  show  a  decided  improvement  of  the  con- 
dition of  labor,  going  parallel  with  immigration  (see  pp. 
295-297).  This  was,  of  course,  due  to  the  industrial  progress 
of  the  country,  in  which  the  workers  had  a  share.  Prof. 
Fairchild  thinks  that,  with  the  wonderful  development  of 
industry  in  the  United  States,  the  share  of  the  workers 
should  have  been  larger  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  influx  of 
immigrants.  But  this  is  begging  the  question. 

He  cites  the  example  of  Germany,  where  the  expansion  of 
industry  improved  the  condition  of  labor,  and  asks  why  it 
has  not  had  the  same  effect  in  the  United  States,  the  infer- 
ence being  that  in  the  United  States  the  advancement  of 
labor  was  retarded  by  immigration.  He  overlooks,  however, 
the  fact  that  the  period  of  German  industrial  expansion  was 
also  a  period  of  immigration  of  Polish  and  Italian  workers 
to  Germany.  Thus  improvement  of  the  condition  of  labor 
came  along  with  immigration. 

But,  cleverly  interjects  Dr.  Foerster,  if  statistics  "really 
prove  that  heavy  immigration  does  not  hurt  the  terms  of 
employment  of  labor,  then  they  also  prove  that  such  immi- 
gration betters  the  terms  of  employment"  (p.  662).  He 
assumes  that  because  a  certain  proposition  is  true,  the  con- 
verse proposition,  too,  must  be  true.  Perhaps,  however, 
one  must  not  expect  from  an  economic  scholar  a  familiarity 
with  Euclid's  rules  of  deductive  reasoning. 

From  an  economic  point  of  view  immigration  is  merely  a 
movement  of  labor  to  the  market  where  there  is  a  demand 


Appendix  521 

for  it,  precisely  as  the  movement  from  the  country  to  the 
city.  Immigration  to  the  United  States  supplied  the  un- 
skilled labor  which  was  wanted  by  the  rapidly  expanding 
American  industries.  The  expansion  of  industry  created  a 
lively  demand  for  skilled  workers,  as  well  as  many  positions 
of  a  supervisory  character — these  positions  were  filled  by 
native  workers  and  older  immigrants.  To  this  extent  im- 
migration indirectly  did  better  their  terms  of  employment. 
This  tendency  has  been  recognized  by  the  experts  of  the 
Immigration  Commission  (see  p.  163). 

On  the  other  hand,  reduction  of  the  supply  of  labor,  in- 
stead of  raising  wages,  may  react  upon  the  demand  for  labor. 
A  demonstration  was  furnished  by  the  "non-essential"  in- 
dustries during  the  late  war.  The  supply  of  foreign  labor 
was  cut  off,  shortage  of  labor  necessitated  the  suspension  of 
building  activities,  with  the  result  that  whereas  from  1897 
to  1917  relative  full-time  weekly  earnings  in  the  building 
trades  had  grown  faster  than  the  average  for  ten  leading 
industries,  in  1918  they  fell  behind  the  average.1  The  after- 
effect of  the  suspension  of  building  operations  has  been  the 
present  housing  crisis,  which  has  raised  the  cost  of  shelter 
58  per  cent  since  the  armistice.2  This  is  tantamount  to  a 
reduction  of  the  real  wages  of  the  working  class,  as  a  whole, 
for  the  benefit  of  the  landlord  class. 

Deductive  reasoning  proves  as  fallacious  in  relation  to 
the  problem  of  unemployment.  Prof.  Fairchild  rules  out  all 
the  evidence  disproving  the  hypothesis  that  immigration  is 
responsible  for  unemployment.  It  is  wrong  to  assume,  he 
thinks,  that  the  effects  of  immigration  upon  the  labor  market 
must  manifest  themselves  immediately;  they  may  be  cumu- 
lative, and  will  tell  a  few  years  later,  during  a  period  of  in- 
dustrial depression.  Indeed,  inasmuch  as  over  five  million 
immigrants  were  admitted  to  the  United  States  within  the 

1  Douglas  and  Lamberson,  loc.  cit.t  Table  IV. 

2  Changes  in  Cost  of  Living  and  Prices.    Bureau  of  Applied  Economics. 
Bulletin  No.  6,  Addendum,  September  25,  1920.     (Estimate  of  the 
National  Industrial  Conference  Board.) 


522  Appendix 

past  ten  years,  and  there  are  to-day  over  five  million  un- 
employed in  this  country,  is  it  not  self-evident  that  had 
those  five  million  aliens  been  kept  out,  there  would  be  a  job 
for  everybody  in  this  country  to-day?  Yet  on  the  other 
hand,  Australia,  with  a  total  population  of  five  millions  to  a 
continent  as  large  as  the  United  States,  and  without  immi- 
gration, has  also  known  unemployment  on  a  scale  as  large 
in  proportion  as  the  state  of  New  York.  Prof.  Fairchild 
dismisses  this  argument  "without  opinion,"  to  use  a  legal 
phrase.  The  fallacy  of  his  interpretation  of  cyclical  unem- 
ployment lies  in  the  ready  assumption  that  unemployment 
is  the  result  of  an  excessive  supply  of  labor,  whereas,  to 
quote  Mr.  Beveridge,  "it  depends  upon  the  nature  of  the 
demand  for  labor,  not  upon  the  volume  of  the  whole  supply" 
(see  Chapter  VI).  The  advocates  of  restriction  of  immigra- 
tion overlook  the  fact  that  parallel  with  the  immigration  of 
labor  to  the  United  States  prior  to  the  war  there  was  going 
on  an  immigration  of  European  capital  to  the  United  States. 
It  was  estimated  that  the  total  amount  of  European  capital 
invested  in  permanent  securities  and  loans  in  the  United 
States  was  approximately  $6, 500,000,000. l  This  was  equal 
to  about  14  per  cent  of  the  total  capital  invested  in  American 
industries  (exclusive  of  agriculture).2  The  foreign-born  non- 
agricultural  population  constituted  about  the  same  percen- 
tage of  the  total  non-agricultural  population  of  the  United 
States.3  In  other  words,  European  capital  came  together 


1  George  Paish,  The  Trade  Balance  of  the  United  States,  pp.  174,  175. 
(Senate  Document  579,  Sixty-first  Congress,  2d  Session.) 

1  The  wealth  invested  in  mines  and  quarries,  factory  land  and  im- 
provements, manufacturing  machinery,  products  of  mining  and  manu- 
facturing in  stock,  steam  railroads,  canals  and  shipping,  telegraphs, 
telephones,  street  railways,  central  electric  light  and  power  stations, 
private  waterworks,  and  other  business  property,  was  estimated  for 
1904  at  $46,900,000,000.— Wealth,  Debt,  and  Taxation  (Bureau  of  Cen- 
sus), pp.  12,  17,  22,  27. 

8  The  proportion  of  foreign-born  among  the  farmers  in  the  United 
States  was  13.2  per  cent  in  1900  (Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  Table 
XXXVI.,  p.  cxiii.),  i.e.t  approximately  the  same  as  among  the  popula- 
tion at  large. 


Appendix  523 

with  European  labor  to  assist  in  the  development  of  American 
industry. 

The  Immigration  Commission  contended  that  there  was, 
nevertheless,  an  oversupply  of  unskilled  labor  due  to  immi- 
gration. The  guiding  idea  of  its  report  is  the  belief  that 
native  Americans  and  older  immigrant  workers  had  been 
displaced  by  recent  immigrants.  In  support  of  this  theory 
the  Commission  quoted  census  statistics  for  the  decade  1890- 
1900.  On  closer  examination,  however,  the  figures  of  the 
censuses  of  1890  and  1900  proved  quite  the  opposite  of  what 
the  Commission  intended  to  prove.  Yet  Prof.  Fairchild 
would  not  give  up  a  hypothesis  merely  for  want  of  facts  to 
support  it.  The  decade  1890-1900,  he  objects,  is  incon- 
clusive, because  it  was  a  period  of  light  immigration,  but  if 
the  author  had  consulted  the  figures  of  the  XIII.  Census, 
which  followed  a  decade  of  heavy  immigration,  they  would 
tell  another  story.  Regardless  of  the  general  rule  that  the 
burden  of  proof  is  not  on  the  negative,  but  on  the  affirmative 
— in  the  present  case,  upon  that  side  which  affirms  the  theory 
of  "racial  displacement" — it  is  characteristic  of  Prof.  Fair- 
child's  easy  methods  of  reasoning  that  at  the  time  he  made 
this  guess  the  occupation  statistics  of  the  XIII.  Census  had 
not  yet  been  published,  so  he  manifestly  did  not  know  what 
they  would  show. 

The  present  writer  was  not  satisfied,  however,  to  rest  his 
conclusions  on  the  period  relied  upon  by  the  Immigration 
Commission,  but,  anticipating  such  hypothetical  objections 
as  those  of  Prof.  Fairchild,  he  perused  the  report  of  the 
Massachusetts  state  census  of  1905,  which  showed  "no  ma- 
terial change  in  the  make-up  of  the  industrial  forces  during 
the  first  five  years  of  the  present  century"  (see  p.  176). 
The  years  1900-1905  were  marked  by  heavy  immigration; 
the  total  for  the  five-year  period,  3,841,646,  exceeded  the 
total  for  the  previous  decade;1  the  net  immigration  for  the 
five  calendar  years  1900-1904,  preceding  the  Massachusetts 
state  census,  was  nearly  equal  to  the  net  immigration  for  the 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  i,  pp.  56,  57. 


524  Appendix 

next  five  years,  1905-1909,  preceding  the  XIII.  Census  of 
the  United  States  (see  Table  8,  on  p.  90) ;  Massachusetts  is 
one  of  the  states  with  a  large  immigrant  population.  In 
the  absence  of  any  data  to  the  contrary,  the  results  of  the 
Massachusetts  census  could  properly  be  accepted  as  an  indi- 
cation that  the  data  for  1890-1900  still  held  good  in  1910. 

The  XIII.  Census  report  on  occupations  was  subsequently 
published  in  an  uncompleted  form,  with  a  new  classification 
which  rendered  its  figures  non-comparable  with  those  of  the 
preceding  censuses. 

Another  of  the  popular  myths  related  to  the  subject  of 
labor  supply  is  the  alleged  "stimulation"  of  immigration. 
The  author  has  quoted  the  statement  of  the  Immigration 
Commission  that  "owing  to  the  rigidity  of  the  law  and  the 
fact  that  special  provision  is  made  for  its  enforcement,  there 
are  probably  at  the  present  time  relatively  few  actual  con- 
tract laborers  admitted."  This  does  not  satisfy  Prof.  Fair- 
child.  He  insinuates  that  the  author  has  deliberately  omitted 
other  qualifying  statements  of  the  Commission.  He  quotes  a 
sentence  to  the  effect  that  "a  very  large  number  .  .  .  come 
in  response  to  indirect  assurance  that  employment  awaits 
them"  (which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  could  have  found  on 
p.  94  of  this  book,  reproduced  in  almost  identical  language 
from  another  page  of  the  same  volume).  He  further  quotes 
the  opinion  of  the  Commission  that  "it  is  certain  that  Euro- 
pean immigrants,  and  particularly  those  from  southern  and 
eastern  Europe,  are,  under  a  literal  construction  of  the  law, 
for  the  most  part  contract  laborers"  (p.  761).  He  is  not  dis- 
turbed by  the  glaring  contradiction  between  this  conclusion 
and  the  other  that  "owing  to  the  rigidity  of  the  law"  and  its 
effective  enforcement  there  are  "few  actual  contract  laborers 
admitted."  He  fails  to  perceive  the  distinction  between  a 
statement  of  facts  and  a  conclusion,  and  is  apparently  un- 
familiar with  the  time-honored  rule  of  evidence  that  one 
may  accept  the  testimony  of  witnesses  concerning  facts, 
without  accepting  their  conclusions  from  those  facts. 

Closely  connected  with  the  subject  of  unemployment  is 


Appendix  525 

the  effect  of  machinery  upon  the  demand  for  labor.  Here 
again  deductive  reasoning  has  failed  our  learned  economists. 
Prof.  Fairchild  denies  "the  assumption  (sic!)  that  labor- 
saving  machinery  supplants  skilled  labor  to  a  much  greater 
extent  than  unskilled  labor"  (p.  763).  He  is  seconded  by 
Dr.  Foerster,  who  has  picked  out  a  number  of  exceptions,  of 
which  only  one  need  be  mentioned  here:  "The  old  cobbler 
was  not  superior  to  the  worker  in  the  modern  shoe  industry" 
(p.  665).  He  should  brush  up  on  his  Taussig,  where  he  will 
find  the  following: 

The  cobbler  of  former  days  put  together  a  shoe  by  himself;  in  a 
modern  factory  the  shoe  goes  through  some  eighty  different  processes. 
.  .  .  The  machines  now  used  .  .  .  have  extended  the  principle  of  the 
automatic  repetition  of  identical  movements  to  tasks  long  thought 
too  intricate  to  be  amenable  to  such  methods.  .  .  .  The  skillful  work- 
man and  the  adaptable  tool  retain  a  large  place  in  industry;  but  the 
range  of  their  work  tends  to  become  more  and  more  restricted.1 

This  proposition  has  become  a  truism.  The  author  has 
quoted  a  statement  of  Professors  Jenks  and  Lauck  which  in- 
cidentally refers  to  the  fact  that  "the  invention  of  mechan- 
ical methods  and  processes"  has  resulted  in  the  employment 
of  "unskilled  industrial  workers  as  a  substitute  for  the 

1  Principles  of  Economics,  by  F.  W.  Taussig,  vol.  i,  pp.  35-36. — That 
the  theory  originated  by  Prof.  Fairchild  and  Dr.  Foerster  had  been 
unknown  to  their  predecessors  in  the  field  of  economics,  appears  from 
the  following  references:  "The  effect  of  improvements  in  machinery," 
according  to  an  early  writer,  consists  "in  substituting  one  description 
of  human  labor  for  another — the  less  skilled  for  the  more  skilled." 
— Andrew  Ure:  The  Philosophy  of  Manufactures,  p.  321  (Third  edition, 
London,  1861).  "A  factor  that  has  had  a  real  tendency  to  lower  the 
actual  average  earnings  of  the  wage-earner  in  many  of  the  industries  is 
the  displacement  of  the  skilled  operative  by  machinery,  which  permits 
the  substitution  of  a  comparatively  unskilled  machine  hand.  This 
tendency  is  noticeable  in  many  lines  of  industry." — Twelfth  Census, 
Manufactures,  vol.  i,  p.  123.  President  McKinley's  Industrial  Commis- 
sion, discussing  the  effects  of  immigration  upon  wages,  remarked  that 
"machinery  ...  by  displacing  the  skilled  mechanic,  makes  room  for  the 
unskilled  immigrant." — Report  of  the  Industrial  Commission,  vol.  xv, 
p.  xxiii. 


f 


526  Appendix 

skilled  operatives  formerly  required"  (see  p.  290).  That  in 
some  cases  the  machine  has  substituted  a  new  kind  of  skill 
for  the  old  one,  may  be  conceded.  But  the  error  is  in  the 
deductive  reasoning  from  insufficient  facts,  which  are  gen- 
eralized out  of  all  proportion  to  their  real  place  in  modern 
industry.  If  Dr.  Foerster  had  taken  note  of  the  statistics 
compiled  by  Mr.  Fitch  in  his  study  of  the  steel  workers 
(reproduced  in  Table  121  of  this  book)  he  would  realize  that 
the  skilled  workers  constitute  only  about  one-sixth  of  the 
force  of  a  modern  steel  plant,  whereas  more  than  three-fifths 
are  unskilled  laborers.  Owing  to  his  misconception  of  the 
effects  of  machinery  he  fails  to  "see  that  the  introduction  of 
new  labor-saving  machinery  as  a  substitute  for  immigration 
would  displace  the  skilled  labor  of  the  native  American 
workers  and  reduce  them  to  the  condition  of  unskilled 
laborers  (see  Chapter  XXIII). 

The  contempt  of  both  reviewers  for  facts  is  reflected  in 
their  judgments  on  every  economic  and  social  problem. 
Discrimination  between  recent  immigrants  from  southern 
and  eastern  Europe  and  older  immigrants  from  northern 
and  western  Europe,  runs  through  the  whole  report  of  the 
Immigration  Commission,  yet  Dr.  Foerster  wonders,  are 
there  really  "persons  who  ask  for  restriction  on  the  ground 
that  former  immigrants  were  'more  desirable'  than  the 
present  ones"?  (p.  658).  He  ridicules  the  idea  that  "a  re- 
duction in  the  day's  work,  all  other  things  being  equal,  pro- 
vides more  days  of  work  for  every  employee."  Yet  it  is  a 
fact  that  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  has  repeatedly 
urged  the  shortening  of  the  work  day  on  this  very  ground.1 

Prof.  Fairchild,  speaking  of  child  labor,  says: 

The  only  reasonable  basis  of  comparison  is  the  total  number  of  chil- 
dren of  the  given  ages  in  each  nativity  group  in  the  country.  If  the 
author  had  made  this  comparison  ...  it  would  have  appeared  that 
nearly  three  times  as  large  a  percentage  of  all  children  of  foreign  parents, 

lSee  Report  on  Unemployment,  by" John  Koren,  in  "Waste  in  In- 
dustry," by  The  Committee  on  Elimination  of  Waste  in  Industry  of 
the  Federated  Engineering  Societies  (1921),  p.  296. 


Appendix  527 

of  the  given  ages,  are  employed  in  the  specified  occupations  as  children  of 
native  parents  (p.  762). 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  author  did  make  such  a  compari- 
son in  Table  94,  on  p.  320,  with  the  result  that  the  percentage 
of  children  of  foreign  parents  employed  in  manufactures  was 
found  to  be  exactly  the  same  as  that  of  children  of  native 
parents,  and  not  "three  times  as  large,"  as  Prof.  Fairchild 
imagines. 

Dr.  Foerster  interprets  the  employment  of  children  in 
large  numbers  in  the  Southern  mills  as  the  effect  of  immi- 
gration. The  Southern  manufacturers  are  compelled  to  em- 
ploy children  in  order  to  meet  the  competition  of  the  cheap 
immigrant  labor  of  the  North.  Reference  to  Table  114 
shows,  however,  that  the  average  yearly  earnings  of  adult 
males  in  the  cotton  mills  of  South  Carolina  were  at  the  cen- 
sus of  manufactures  of  1905  about  equal  to  the  earnings  of 
children  in  the  cotton  mills  of  Massachusetts  ($244  and 
$233,  respectively),  and  that  the  earnings  of  adult  males  in 
Pennsylvania  were  more  than  double  the  earnings  of  adult 
males  in  North  and  South  Carolina.  It  was  a  case  of  the 
native  Southerner  underbidding  the  immigrant.  The  ab- 
sence of  adequate  laws  against  child  labor  in  the  South  is 
thus  obviously  due  to  the  demand  for  labor,  not  for  cheap 
labor — adult  male  labor  is  cheap  enough  in  the  South.  In 
the  Ncrth,  too,  child  labor  was  employed  in  the  early  days  of 
the  cotton  manufacturing  industry;  later,  however,  with  the 
growth  of  immigration,  the  cotton  mills  secured  a  supply  of 
adult  labor  which  made  it  practicable  to  dispense  with 
child  labor  (see  Chapter  XIV). 

In  reference  to  pauperism,  Dr.  Fairchild  boldly  asserts 
that  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  "statistics  which  would  not 
go  to  show  that  the  amount  of  pauperism  among  the  foreign- 
born  was  vastly  out  of  proportion  to  their  total  numbers  in  the 
population''  (p.  762).  It  does  not  matter  that  Tables  106- 
109  do  present  such  statistics,  drawn  from  official  sources, 
and  that  the  Immigration  Commission,  though  unfriendly  to 
immigration,  after  an  investigation  which  covered  the  activi- 


528  Appendix 

ties  of  associated  charities  in  forty-three  cities,  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  "the  recent  immigrants,  even  in  cities  in 
times  of  relative  industrial  inactivity,  did  not  seek  charitable 
assistance  in  any  considerable  numbers"  (p.  354). 

A  brief  chapter  has  been  devoted  by  the  author  to  the 
refutation  of  Gen.  Walker's  theory  that  immigration  has 
displaced  millions  of  unborn  Americans.  To  Prof.  Fairchild's 
mind,  however,  the  reiteration  of  Gen.  Walker's  hypothesis 
by  other  prominent  writers  (none  of  whom  has  contributed 
a  single  new  fact  in  support  of  it)  somehow  vests  it  with 
added  authority.  Magister  dixit.  He  is  not  disturbed  by 
his  own  admission,  in  his  book  published  a  short  time  before, 
that  "the  proposition  ...  is  absolutely  incapable  of  mathe- 
matical proof."  l 

To  prove  that  the  world-wide  "volitional  limitation  of  the 
family"  has  no  relation  to  immigration  to  the  United  States, 
figures  were  quoted,  in  the  first  edition  of  this  book,  from 
Mr.  Newsholme's  The  Declining  Birth  Rate,  showing  the  num- 
ber of  children  born  to  an  average  family  of  the  British  aris- 
tocracy to  have  declined  within  half  a  century  from  7  to  3.* 
The  decline  of  the  birth-rate  among  the  upper  classes  of  Eng- 
land led  Prof.  Karl  Pearson  to  the  following  conclusions: 

The  mentally  better  stock  in  the  nation  is  not  reproducing  itself  at 
the  same  rate  as  of  old.  .  .  .  For  the  last  forty  years  the  intellectual 
classes  of  the  nation,  enervated  by  wealth  or  by  love  of  pleasure,  or 
following  an  erroneous  standard  of  life,  have  ceased  to  give  in  due  pro- 
portion the  men  wanted  to  carry  on  the  ever-growing  work  of  the 
Empire.8 

Still,  if  facts  do  not  count  with  Prof.  Fairchild  against  a 
preconceived  idea  backed  up  by  authorities,  the  authority 
of  Prof.  Willcox,  ranged  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  question, 

1  Henry  Pratt  Fairchild:  Immigration^  pp.  341-342. 

*  These  statistics  have  since  been  superseded  by  a  nation-wide  inves- 
tigation, the  results  of  which  are  quoted  in  the  present  edition. 

'  Quoted  in  the  first  edition,  p.  226,  from  The  Declining  Birth  Rate, 
by  Arthur  Newsholme,  pp.  42-43. 


Appendix  529 

ought  to  have  appealed  to  him.  That  he  has  not  a  word  to 
say  about  Prof.  Willcox's  arguments,  although  he  has 
noticed  the  wrong  spelling  of  Prof.  Willcox's  name,  is  ground 
for  suspicion  that  he  did  not  read  the  chapter  on  Race 
Suicide,  and  based  his  peremptory  judgment  on  the  brief 
summary  on  p.  18. 

Verily,  there  are  none  so  blind  as  those  who  would  not 
see. 


Appendix 


Note  to  page  499. 

IMPORTATION  OF  MEXICAN  CONTRACT-LABORERS. 

Under  the  departmental  regulations,  Mexican  contract  laborers  are 
admitted  on  the  express  condition  that  they  will  remain  at  work  with 
the  employer  by  whom  they  were  imported.  If  a  contract  laborer  de- 
serts his  employer  and  attempts  to  seek  work  elsewhere,  he  is  to  be 
deported  from  the  United  States.  There  is  a  possibility  that  a  contract 
laborer  who  has  deserted  his  employer  might  successfully  conceal  his 
identity  and  find  other  employment.  To  guard  against  such  an  emer- 
gency the  employer  is  required  to  withhold  a  part  of  the  wages  of  the 
contract  laborer,  pending  the  fulfillment  of  his  contract,  and  to  deposit 
the  same  with  a  postal  savings  bank  in  the  name  of  the  laborer.  In 
case  the  latter  deserts,  he  forfeits  the  amount  deposited  for  his  benefit. 
To  be  sure,  the  regulations  require  the  employer  to  pay  his  contract 
laborers  the  prevailing  rate  of  wages.1  But  this  is  merely  nudum  jus, 
which  could  not  be  enforced  in  practice.  Suppose  the  employer  pays  his 
imported  laborer  under  the  prevailing  rate,  what  remedy  has  the  latter 
to  enforce  his  claim?  He  dare  not  leave  his  job  and  seek  employment 
on  better  terms,  for  fear  of  deportation.  For  the  same  reason  he  dare 
not  strike  for  higher  wages.  He  must  accept  the  wages  stipulated  in 
his  contract  (made  in  Mexico)  although  they  may  be  below  the  pre- 
vailing rate  paid  for  the  same  work  in  the  same  locality.  "That  wages 
paid  and  conditions  provided"  for  the  imported  Mexican  laborers  were 
"perhaps  in  many  cases  not  ideal,"  is  admitted  in  a  report  of  an  investi- 
gating committee  appointed  by  Secretary  Wilson.  It  is  learned  from 
the  same  report  that  10,691  imported  contract  laborers,  i.e.,  21  per 
cent  of  the  total  number,  deserted.8 

1  "The  New  Mexican  Immigration,"  by  J.  B.  Gwin:    The  Survey, 
August  3,  1918,  p.  491. 
1  Monthly  Labor  Review,  November,  1920,  p.  223. 


STATISTICAL  TABLES 

TABLE  I. — ANNUAL  AVERAGE  IMMIGRATION  DISTRIBUTED  BY  OCCUPA* 
TIONS  (IN  THOUSANDS),  1.861-1910. x 


Occupation 

1861-1870 

1871-1880 

1881-1890 

1891-1900 

1901-1910 

Professional      

i 

2 

3* 

2 

IO 

Skilled  

^o 

•j-i 

CA 

AA 

1^2 

Agricultural  pursuits, 
total 

22 

26 

•17 

2<\ 

TCQ 

Common  laborers  .... 

C-I 

60 

I-I-I 

IO1 

*ov 

227 

Servants  .       

9 

II 

25 

•l-I 

O2 

All  other  occupations.  .  . 

10 

II 

13 

12 

33 

Total  

125 

14.  •t 

265 

210 

651 

TABLE  II:— FLUCTUATIONS  OF  EMPLOYMENT  OF  MALE  WAGE-EARNERS 
IN  THE  MONTH  OF  MAY,  1899.* 


Greatest  number  laid  off 
Industry 

Glucose 

Fur  hats 

Jewelry 

Steam  fittings  and  heating  apparatus 


Number 
1,267 
1,650 
1,924 
1, 680 


Total. 


6,521 


*  Monthly  Summary  of  Commerce  and  Finance,  June,  1903,  pp.  4408- 
44 1 1 .  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission.  A  bstract  of  the  Statistical 
Review  of  Immigration  to  the  United  States,  1820-1910,  Tables  11-12. 
Annual  Reports  of  the  Commissioner-General  of  Immigration,  1899,  Table 
VII.,p.  19;  1900,  Table  VII.,  p.  21;  1901,  Table  IX.,  p.  26;  1902,  Table 
IX.,  p.  29;  1903,  Table  IX.,  p.  33;  1904,  Table  IX.,  p.  30;  1905, 
Table  VIII.,  p.  29;  1906,  Table  VIIL,  p.  31;  1907,  Table  VIII.,  p.  31; 
1908,  Table  VIII.,  p.  35;  1909,  Table  X.,  p.  46;  1910,  Table  X.,  p.  45. 

a  Compiled  from  U.  S.  XII.  Census  Report  on  Manufactures,  Pt.  I, 
Table  2,  pp.  20  et  se^. 

a  Difference  between  the  greatest  number  employed  at  any  time 
during  the  year  and  the  number  employed  in  May  (i.e.,  the  least  number). 

531 


532  Appendix 

TABLE  II. — (Continued). 

Greatest  number  of  temporary  Help  wanted.* 

Industry  Numbet 

Awnings,  tents,  and  sails 1,312 

Bags,  paper 338 

Baskets  and  rattan  and  willow  ware 1 ,889 

Belting  and  hose,  leather 63 

Blacksmithing  and  wheel wrighting 3»°45 

Boxes,  wooden  packing 2,771 

Brass  castings  and  brass  finishings 721 

Bread  and  other  bakery  products 2,661 

Bicycle  and  tricycle  repairing 3,696 

Carpets,  rag 290 

Carriages  and  wagons 14>l87 

Cars,  general  shop  construction  and  repairs  by  street 

railroad  companies 57^ 

Cheese,  butter,  and  condensed  milk,  factory  product 5,789 

Clothing,  men's,  custom  work  and  repairing 16,861 

Cork,  cutting 123 

Corsets 84 

Dyeing  and  cleaning 771 

Dyestuffs  and  extracts 178 

Electroplating 483 

Furniture,  cabinetmaking,  repairing  and  upholstering  ....  2,384 

Gas,  machines  and  meters 193 

Gloves  and  mittens 561 

Grease  and  tallow 142 

Grindstones 487 

Hosiery  and  knit  goods 1,723 

Lamps  and  reflectors 439 

Lock  and  gun  smithing 100 

Lumber,  planing  mill  products,  including  sash,  doors,  and 

blinds 13,399 

Lumber  and  timber  products 93,238 

Monuments  and  tombstones 4,4°3 

Painting,  house,  sign,  etc 48,838 

Paperhanging 5,637 

Paper  and  wood  pulp 4,002 

Photographic  materials 55 

Pipes,  tobacco 138 

Plumbers'  supplies 7 834 

Refrigerators 383 

1  Difference  between  the  number  employed  in  May  (i.e.,  the  greatest 
number)  and  the  least  number  employed  at  any  time  during  the  year. 


Appendix 


533 


TABLE  II. — (Concluded). 

Industry 

Safes  and  vaults 

Ship  and  boat  building,  wooden 

Slaughtering,  wholesale,  not  including  packing. 

Tin  and  terae  plate 

Tobacco,  chewing,  smoking,  and  snuff 

Tobacco,  cigars,  and  cigarettes 

Washing  machines  and  clothes  wringers 

Window  shades 

Zinc,  smelting  and  refining 

Total. . 


Number 

137 

5,346 

743 

1.594 

3,983 

6,348 

212 
247 
590 


252,01 7 

TABLE  III. — MAXIMUM  AND  MINIMUM  NUMBER  OF  WAGE-EARNERS  EMPLOYED  n 
MANUFACTURES  DURING  ANY  ONE  MONTH,  NUMBER  AND  PER  CENT  UNEM 
PLOYED,  1899,  AND  PER  CENT  FOREIGN-BORN  ENGAGED  IN  MANUFACTURED 
AND  MECHANICAL  PURSUITS,  1900,  BY  SEX  AND  BY  STATES.' 


Rank  ace  ord- 

Unemployed 

ing  to 

Number  employed 

;  per  cent 

State* 

(oo's  omitted) 

4 

:°|! 

. 

. 

I  .-A 

8>H 

§1 

So 

8  g  g 

*1 

P 

1* 

Maximum  month 

Minimum  month 

*! 

*liS 

H 

I.  —  MALES 

i 

5 

North  Carolina 

May            47,9 

August        42,5 

5,4 

11.3 

1.0 

2 

3° 

South  Carolina 

November  32,8 

July             26,0 

6,8 

20.5 

1.7 

3 

19 

Georgia 

March         70,2 

July            59.9 

10,3 

14.6 

2.8 

4 

Virginia 

May             60,0 

January       52,0 

8,0 

13.3 

3-9 

i 

Tennessee 

May            44.4 

August        41,0 

3,4 

7.7 

4-5 

5 

42 

Mississippi 

October       28,4 

July             19,6 

8,8 

31.0 

4.6 

7 

25 

Alabama 

October       49,2 

July             40,3 

8,9 

18.1 

5-5 

8 

33 

Arkansas 

November  28,5 

July             22,1 

6,4 

22.5 

6.4 

9 

35 

Oklahoma 

May              2,2 

July              i,7 

5 

22.7 

9.0 

10 

ii 

12 

17 

22 

47 

West  Virginia 
Kentucky 
Louisiana 

May             31,9 
May             56,9 
November  54,3 

July            27,4 
January       48,0 
July             28,3 

4,5 
8,9 
26,0 

14.1 
15-6 

47-9 

10.3 

"•5 
12.4 

13 

43 

District  of 

Columbia 

September  16,7 

February     11,1 

5.6 

33-5 

13-0 

14 

13 

Indiana 

May           144.5 

December  125,3 

19,2 

13-3 

14.7 

15 

16 

48 
36 

Indian  Territory 
Florida 

November     2,4 
March         36,0 

June              1,1 
July            27,8 

1,3 
8,2 

54-2 

22.8 

15-2 
1  6.0 

17 

20 

Delaware 

September   19,2 

February     16,3 

2.9 

i5-i 

17.7 

18 

24 

Maryland 

September  80,2 

January       66,6 

13,6 

16.8 

18.4 

'  Compiled  from  XII.  Census  Report  on  Manufactures,  Vol.  I,  Table  3,  pp.  62-63 

Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  p.  164,  Table  34. 
a  States  where  the  number  of  males  or  females,  respectively,  employed  durinj 

the  maximum  month  was  less  than  1000,  are  not  included. 

534 

TABLE  III.— (Continued) 


Appendix 


Rank  a 

ing 
perc 

—  —  — 

fj 

ccord- 
to 
ent 

••M  ^—  ~ 

il 

<§* 

State 

Number  employed 
(oo's  omitted) 

Unemployed 

(Per  cent 

foreign-born 

Number 
(oo's  omitted) 

Per  cent  of 
greatest  num- 
ber employedj 

Maximum  month 

Minimum  month 

19 

44 

Texas 

October       56,5 

June            37,6 

18,9 

33-5 

18.9 

2O 

23 

Kansas  t 

May            33,3 

January       27,8 

5,5 

16.4 

194 

21 

27 

Missouri 

May           115,2 

January       93,1 

22,1 

19.2 

2O.6 

22 

10 

Ohio 

May          304,6 

January     266,5 

38,1 

12.5 

24.1 

23 

38 

Maine 

September  60,6 

January       45,5 

15,1 

24.9 

24.2 

24 

39 

Iowa 

September  54,9 

January       40,0 

14,9 

27.2 

26.5 

3 

40 

21 

Oregon 
Vermont 

June             1  6,  9 
May            26,9 

January       12,3 
January       22,8 

4,6 
4,1 

27.2 
15-2 

28.8 
29.6 

27 

2 

New  Mexico 

May              2,6 

February       2,4 

2 

7-7 

30.c 

28 

26 

Nebraska 

September  22,6 

February      18,4 

4,2 

18.6 

30.7 

29 

45 

Idaho 

May              1,7 

anuary         I  ,i 

6 

35-3 

30 

7 

Pennsylvania 

May           596,7 

January     531,5 

65,5 

II.O 

33-2 

31 

31 

California 

September  80,4 

January       63,2 

16,9 

2I.O 

34-4 

32 

Washington 

May            38,0 

January       27,0 

11,0 

29.0 

34-9 

33 

3 

New  Hampshire 

May            49,o 

[anuary       45,0 

4,0 

8.2 

f\ 

37-8 

34 

18 

Arizona 

May              3,5 

November     3,0 

5 

14.2 

37-5 

35 

16 

Colorado 

October       24,3 

February     21,0 

3,3 

13-6 

J» 

38.4 

36 

12 

New  Jersey 

May           191,6 

January      166,4 

25,2 

13.2 

38-S 

37 

II 

Wyoming 

August          2,3 

February       2,0 

3 

13-0 

40.$ 

38 

6 

Connecticut 

May           135,2 

January     121,2 

14,0 

IO.4 

39 

15 

Illinois 

May          345,7 

January     299,2 

46,5 

13-5 

44-* 

40 

28 

Michigan 

May           151,2 

January      121,6 

29,6 

19.6 

44-* 

41 

32 

Wisconsin 

May           134,0 

January     104,1 

29,9 

22.3 

44-* 

42 
43 

8 
4 

New  York 
Massachusetts 

May          639,9 
October     355,2 

January     564,5 
January     322,8 

75,4 
32,4 

H.8 
9.1 

44-5 
46.3 

44 

37 

Utah 

September     6,2 

February       4,7 

24.2 

45 

9 

Rhode  Island 

September  66,9 

January       59,0 

7\9 

11.8 

47.C 

46 

29 

Montana 

May             10,6 

February       8,5 

2,1 

19.8 

CJ    £ 

47 

46 

North  Dakota 

September     2,7 

February       1  ,6 

1,1 

40.7 

53-! 

48 

34 

Minnesota 

May            74,2 

January       57,5 

16,7 

22.5 

\j*j  ^ 
53-* 

UNITED  STATES 

May        4333,9 

January  3800,9 

533,o 

12.3 

32-; 

II.  —  FEMALES 

I 

5 

North  Carolina 

May            16,7 

July             14,7 

2,0 

12.0 

O.2 

2 

3 

South  Carolina 

March         10,1 

September     9,3 

8 

7-9 

3 

ii 

Georgia 

April            11,6 

Bily             10,0 

1,6 

13-8 

o.; 

4 

34 

Mississippi 

October         2,1 

ily              1,4 

7 

33-3 

o.f 

5 

24 

Alabama 

May              4,3 

dy           3,3 

1,0 

23-3 

I.C 

6 

H 

Virginia 

October        13,2 

ily            ii,  i 

2,1 

15-9 

i.t 

7 

8 

Tennessee 

May              6,2 

ebruary       54 

8 

12.9 

j  i 

8 

30 

West  Virginia 

October         4,0 

July              2,8 

30.0 

3-( 

9 

10 

23 

Kentucky 
Indiana 

April            1  0,0 
September  22,8 

August          7,8 
July            15,9 

2  ',2 

6,9 

22.0 
30.3 

4.1 
5-4 

Appendix 


S3S 


TABLE  III.— (Concluded). 


iank  accord- 

Unemployed 

ing  to 
per  cent 

Of  A+jh 

Number  employed 
(oo's  omitted) 

tij 

3 

§f| 

Sd 

e*« 

DlabC 

|i 

5*1 

Jj-5? 

•9P 

§£ 

§  o 

y  g  8 

PH  K 

jr 

C  O 
PP, 

Maximum  month 

Minimum  month 

g 

<g|g 

'    i 

ii 

19 

Louisiana 

Vfarch        )    ,  n 
December  f  6'° 

July              4,8 

1,2 

20.0 

5-6 

12 

36 

District  of 

Columbia 

April              2,2 

August          1,3 

9 

40.9 

5-9 

13 

28 

Kansas 

October         3,7 

February       2,7 

1,0 

27.0 

6-5 

14 

37 

Delaware 

September     5,8 

uly               2,4 

3,4 

58.6 

6.6 

15 

16 

Missouri 

September  25,7 

July             20,6 

19.8 

8.4 

16 

29 

Iowa 

September     9,5 

January         6,8 

2  ',7 

28.4 

9.6 

17 

27 

Maryland 

September  36,0 

February     26,3 

9,7 

26.9 

9-7 

18 

9 

Ohio 

Dctober       56,9 

January       49,4 

7,5 

13-2 

IO.O 

19 

25 

Texas 

May              3,4 

August          2,5 

9 

26.5 

10.4 

20 

33 

Oregon 

September     2,2 

August           1  ,5 

7 

31-8 

12.4 

21 

6 

Pennsylvania 

April           131,6 

July            115,8 

15,8 

12.0 

13-0 

22 

12 

Vermont 

April              4,8 

July              4,1 

7 

14.6 

14.6 

23 

32 

Colorado 

October         2,3 

January         1  ,6 

7 

304 

14.8 

24 

26 

Nebraska 

October          3,0 

January         2,2 

8 

26.7 

15-8 

25 

38 

California 

August         27,6 

August         1  1  ,4 

16,2 

58-7 

17.0 

26 

27 

21 
15 

Washington 
Wisconsin 

May               1,4 
October        17,4 

August           1,1 
;  anuary       14,6 

2,8 

21.4 

16.1 

19.1 
19.9 

28 

35 

Florida 

March           2  ,o 

July             1,3 

7 

35-° 

20.3 

29 
30 
31 

18 

10 

20 

Michigan 
New  Jersey 
Illinois 

October        25,6 
October       55,1 
April            64,1 

July             20,5 
July             47,7 
July             51,6 

74 
12,5 

19.9 
134 
19-5 

22.7 
25-2 
26.1 

32 

22 

Minnesota 

May             10,5 

July               8,2 

2,3 

21.9 

27.0 

33 

4 

Connecticut 

October       44,3 

January       40,7 

3,6 

8.1 

27.9 

34 

13 

New  York 

October      244,4 

'uly           208,0 

364 

14.9 

29.6 

35 

17 

Maine 

October       21,1 

February     16,9 

4,2 

19.9 

32.8 

36 

2 

Rhode  Island 

December    30,8 

August        28,^ 

2,4 

7.8 

39-5 

37 

7 

Massachusetts 

April           149,5 

August       130,6 

18,9 

12.6 

40.6 

38 

i 

New  Hampshire 

December    22,5 

August         21,1 

1,4 

6.2 

46.2 

UNITED  STATES 

October    1089,8 

July           949,3 

I4<>5 

12.9 

214 

536  Appendix 

TABLE  IV. — PERCENTAGE  RATIOS  OF  UNEMPLOYED  AND  OF  FOREUM 


Rank  according 

to  per  cent 

- 

| 

Occupation 

Unemployed  a* 
any  time  during 

Foreign 
White 

} 

I 

the  year 

I 

Males 
Telegraph  and  telephone 

operators. 

9.6 

6.3 

2 

34 

Confectioners. 

II.2 

35-9 

3 

47 

Bakers. 

H.3 

56.4 

4 

32 

Butchers. 

H.5 

35-2 

5 

49 

Brewers  and  maltsters. 

I2.I 

71.9 

6 

27 

Bartenders. 

12.5 

31.1 

I 

7 
37 

Porters  and  helpers  (in  stores). 
Cotton  mill  operatives. 

12.6 

19.8 
38.3 

9 

Street  railway  employees. 

13-3 

24.2 

10 

19 

Machinists. 

134 

27.7 

ii 

18 

Blacksmiths. 

13.7 

/    / 

27.7 

12 

5 

Printers,    lithographers,    and 

/     / 

pressmen. 

15-0 

I5-9 

13 

10 

Steam  railroad  employees. 

15-8 

20.08 

14 

30 

Paper  and  pulp  mill 

15 

ii 

operatives. 
Servants  and  waiters. 

16.9 
I7.O 

33-0 
21.5 

If 

22 

Steam  boiler  makers. 

18.4 

„    9 
29.6 

17 

46 

Bleachery    and     dye    works 

T 

18 

9 

operatives. 
Draymen,  hackmen, 

19-3 

53-0 

19 
20 

21 

39 
36 
3 

teamsters,  etc. 
Woolen  mill  operatives. 
Brass  workers. 
Messenger,  errand,  and  office 

19-3 
19-5 
19.6 
197 

20.4 
43-1 
37-3 

boys. 

10  8 

22 
23 
24 

21 

Upholsterers. 
Cabinet  makers. 
Plumber  and  gas  and  steam 

20.9 
20.9 

28.1 
56.5 

fitters. 

22.O 

IO.I 

*"•* 

11 

24 

2 

Tool  and  cutlery  makers. 
Oil  well  and  oil  works 

22.0 

30.2 

27 

38 

employees. 
Textile    workers     (not    soe- 

22.8 

10.5 

28 

26 

cified). 
Wood     workers      (not     spe- 

23.8 

41.8 

29 
30 

43 

cified). 
Leather  curriers  and  tanners. 
Gold  and  silver  workers. 

24.6 
24.8 
25-3 

30.8 
47-7 
34-5 

Appendix 


537 


WHITE  BREADWINNERS  IN  THE  PRINCIPAL  OCCUPATIONS,  1900. 


Rank  according 

to  per  cent 

% 

« 

Unemployed  at 

I 

| 

Occupation 

any  time  during 
the  year 

White* 

A 
1 

.1 

1 

31 

44 

Wire  workers. 

25.3 

49-8 

32 

15 

Tinplate  and  tinware  makers. 

25-9 

24.9 

33 

50 

Tailors. 

27.0 

75-8 

34 

29 

Tobacco    and     cigar    factory 

operatives. 

27.2 

32.6 

35 

35 

Iron  and  steel  workers. 

28.1 

35.9 

36 
37 

42 
28 

Silk  mill  operatives. 
Boatmen  and  sailors. 

29-3 
33-3 

47.1 
31.8 

38 
39 

25 

Coopers. 
Sawing  and  planing  mill 

34-3 

30.8 

employees. 

35-1 

20.1 

40 

41 

Marble  and  stone  cutters. 

39-5 

44.6 

41 

45 

Hat  and  cap  makers. 

41.0 

50.4 

42 

16 

Carpenters  and  joiners. 

41.4 

25.4 

43 

*3 

Painters,   glaziers,  and 

varnishers. 

42.4 

23.5 

44 

40 

Miners  and  quarrymen. 

44-3 

43.7 

45 

20 

Laborers  (not  specified). 

44-3 

28.1 

46 

47 

4 
23 

Paper  hangers. 
Brick  and  tile  makers. 

44-5 
48.4 

13.5 

30.0 

48 

33 

Masons  (brick  and  stone). 

55-5 

35-3 

49 

17 

Plasterers. 

56.1 

25.8 

50 

12 

Glass  workers. 

59-9 

22.7 

Females 

I 

I 

Telegraph  and  telephone 

operators. 

10.7 

6.2 

2 

14 

Servants  and  waitresses. 

14.8 

25.9 

3 

18 

Cotton  mill  operatives. 

14.9 

38.2 

4 

3 

Printers,    lithographers,    and 

5 

presswomen. 
Bookbinders. 

16.5 
16.7 

7.3 

II.O 

6 

g 

Dressmakers. 

19.8 

16.5 

7 

10 

Hosiery    and    knitting    mill 

operatives. 

20.0 

17-9 

8 

7 

Box  makers  (paper). 

26.4 

14.5 

9 

16 

Woolen  mill  operatives. 

31.1 

32.1 

10 

Q 

Shirt,  collar,  and  cuff  makers. 

22.1 

1  6.6 

II 

;? 

15 

Textile  workers  (not  specified). 

22.1 

30.7 

12 

II 

Seamstresses, 

24-2 

18.5 

1  XII.  Census.    Occupations,  pp.  ccxxvii.  et  seq.,  Tables  LXXXVIIL 

and  LXXXIX.;  pp.  cxiv.-^xvi.,  Table  XXXVII. 

538  Appendix 

TABLE  IV.— (Concluded).' 


Rank  according 

to  per  cent 

| 

3 
1 

Occupation 

Unemployed  at 
any  time  during 
the  year 

Foreign 

White 

§ 

.1 

a 

£3 

£ 

13 
14 

12 

4 

Silk  mill  operatives. 
Milliners. 

25.8 
26.3 

23.0 
10.9 

15 

16 

17 
13 

Tailors. 
Tobacco    and    cigar    factory 

26.4 

38.2 

17 

6 

operatives. 
Boot   and   shoe   makers    and 

27.2 

25.2 

repairers. 

42.5 

I4.I 

18 

2 

Laborers  (not  specified). 

44.1 

6.8 

TABLE  V.— BITUMINOUS  COAL  MINES:  GREATEST  AND  LEAST  NUMBER 
EMPLOYED,  PER  CENT  UNEMPLOYED  AT  ANY  TIME  DURING  THE 
YEAR  1902,  AND  PER  CENT  FOREIGN  WHITE  MINERS  IN  1900,  IN 
THE  PRINCIPAL  STATES.  x 


Rank  according  to 
per  cent 

Number  employed 

Per  cent 

Per  cent 

Foreign- 

Unem- 

State3 

unem- 
ployed 

white 
miners 

born 

ployed 

Greatest 

Least 

I 

3 

Texas 

2.035 

1,881 

7.6 

62.7 

2 

3 

ii 

2 

Wyoming 
Pennsylvania 

4,920 
93,620 

3,481 
87,355 

29.2 
6.7 

4 

5 

Illinois 

39,557 

32,809 

I7.I 

48.5 

i 

10 

9 

Iowa 
Kansas 

10,719 

8,120 

7,749 
6,179 

27.7 
23-9 

39-7 
33-6 

I 

i 

Ohio 
IndianTerritory 

27,770 
5,109 

24,241 
4,054 

12.7 
2O.7 

27-0 
26.9 

9 

i 

Maryland 

4,881 

4,706 

3-6 

22.3 

10 

ii 

12 

7 

12 

6 

Indiana 
West  Virginia 
Arkansas 

11,614 
26,197 
2,826 

9,408 
16,564 
2,304 

19.0 
36.7 
18.5 

21.3 
14.3 
13-6 

1  Compiled  from  Census  Report  on  Mines  and  Quarries,  1902,  pp. 
/IO-7I5,  Table  60;  Occupations  at  the  XIL,  Census,  Table  41. 

"All  States  with  less  than  1,000  employees  have  been  omitted; 
likewise  New  Mexico,  Colorado,  Missouri,  and  Washington,  there  being 
&  large  number  of  metalliferous  miners  in  those  States  who  are  not 
segregated  from  coal  miners  in  the  census  statistics  of  occupations. 


Appendix 


539 


TABLE  VI. — LABORERS,  MALE:  PER  CENT  FOREIGN  WHITE  AND 
PER  CENT  UNEMPLOYED,  BY  STATES,  1900. 1 


Rank  according  to 
per  cent 

StRtO 

Foreign 
White 

Unemployed 

Foreign 
White 

Unem- 
ployed 

I 

22 

North  Carolina    . 

O.I 

42.1 

2 

5 

Georgia 

0.4 

37-4 

3 

12 

South  Carolina 

0.4 

39-8 

4 

13 

Alabama 

0.6 

40.6 

36 

Tennessee 

0.6 

45-5 

6 

20 

Virginia 

0.7 

41.6 

8 

II 
50 

Mississippi 
Indian  Territory 

0.9 
1-5 

39-7 
65.0 

9 

33 

Arkansas 

1.6 

45-o 

10 

6 

Florida 

1.7 

38-0 

ii 

42 

Kentucky 

3-3 

49.0 

12 

49 

Oklahoma 

3-3 

56.5 

13 

District  of 

Columbia 

4.1 

38.6 

14 

30 

West  Virginia 

5-5 

44.2 

15 

26 

Louisiana 

5-7 

43-5 

10 

40 

Kansas 

8.8 

47.1 

17 

4 

New  Mexico 

8-9 

37-0 

18 

48 

Indiana 

9.8 

52.1 

19 

28 

Maryland 

12.7 

44.0 

20 

44 

Missouri 

13-3 

49.4 

21 

23 

Oregon 

14.4 

42.4 

22 

35 

Texas 

16.8 

45-3 

23 

9 

Delaware 

17.5 

39-3 

24 

38 

Idaho 

19.6 

45.9 

25 

47 

Iowa 

20.9 

51-2 

26 

Nevada 

22.8 

48.0 

27 

43 

Ohio 

24-3 

49-3 

28 

18 

Nebraska 

26.2 

4L5 

29 

2 

Vermont 

26.4 

35** 

3° 

Colorado 

274 

40.8 

3 

Wyoming 

28.6 

35-5 

32 

24 

Washington 

29.9 

43-0 

33 

34 

Maine 

30.2 

45-0 

34 

46 

Utah 

30.2 

49.6 

37 

South  Dakota 

31-3 

45-7 

96 

29 

California 

32.9 

44.0 

37 
38 

15 
17 

Pennsylvania 
Arizona 

33-4 
40.8 

40.8 
41.2 

39 

Montana 

41.0 

44.6 

40 

32 

I 

Michigan 
New  Hampshire 

41.1 
43-3 

44-8 
33.6 

42 

45 

Illinois 

44.1 

494 

1  Computed  from  Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  Table  41. 


540  Appendix 

TABLE  VI.— (Concluded). 


Rank  according  to 
per  cent 

State 

Foreign 
White 

Unemployed 

Foreign 
White 

Unem- 
ployed 

43 
44 
45 
46 

i 

49 
50 

16 

27 

25 
19 
39 
7 

21 
10 

Wisconsin 
New  York 
North  Dakota 
New  Jersey 
Minnesota 
Connecticut 
Massachusetts 
Rhode  Island 
United  States 

48.0 
50.2 
52.1 
52.9 

Si 

65.8 
65.6 

41.0 
43-7 
434 
41-5 
46.6 
38.1 
41.8 
39-4 

28.1 

44-3 

TABLE  VII. — COTTON  MILL  OPERATIVES,  MALE:  PER  CENT  FOREIGN 
WHITE  AND  PER  CENT  UNEMPLOYED,  BY  STATES,  1900. « 


Rank  according  to 
per  cent 

State 

Pore'gn 
White 

Unemployed 

Foreign 
White 

Unem- 
ployed 

I 

13 

North  Carolina 

0.2 

14.8 

2 

7 

South  Carolina 

0.2 

II.4 

3 

20 

Alabama 

I7.6 

4 

9 

Mississippi 

0-3 

II.5 

I 

19 
15 

Georgia 
Virginia 

0.4 
0.9 

I7.I 
15-4 

7 

i 

Maryland 

1.2 

7-5 

8 

22 

Tennessee 

1.8 

29.6 

9 

10 

Kentucky 

3-1 

13-0 

10 

14 

Texas 

5-3 

15.2 

ii 

23 

Louisiana 

7.2 

34.0 

12 

3 

Indiana 

9.1 

94 

13 

4 

Delaware 

17.8 

II.  I 

14 

16 

Pennsylvania 

19.6 

16.1 

15 

8 

Colorado 

23.9 

11.4 

10 

12 

New  York 

30-7 

14-3 

II 

17 
21 

New  Jersey 
Vermont 

36.8 
48.2 

~  *•* 

16.4 
21.7 

19 

5 

Connecticut 

60.5 

II.  I 

20 
21 

ii 

18 

Rhode  Island 
Maine 

634 
65.9 

£5 

22 

6 

Massachusetts 

72.3 

Ii.  I 

23 

2 

New  Hampshire     * 

74-5 

9.1 

United  States 

38.4 

13-0 

1  Computed  from  Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  Table  41. 


Appendix 


S4i 


TABLE  VIII.— PERSONS  EMPLOYED  IN  ALL  INDUSTRIES  OF  MASSA- 
CHUSETTS, 1888-1908. x 


a 

3 

H 

11 

II 

| 

1 

I! 

Year 

***  "5 

Year 

1 

c 
' 

o  • 

O 

* 

II 

I 

a 

li 

1888 

221,307 

169,610 

51,697 

1899 

420,701 

312,054 

108,647 

1889 

293,321 

224,887 

68,434 

1900 

440,363 

322,200 

118,163 

1890 

322,288 

251,107 

71,181 

1901 

456,137 

339,405 

116,732 

1891 

335,919 

260,419 

75,500 

1902 

483,392 

373,385 

110,007 

1892 

352,939 

271,399 

81,540 

1903 

500,348 

377,563 

122,785 

1893 

345,388 

222,370 

123,018 

1904 

493,354 

363,245 

130,109 

1894 

310,167 

206,423 

103,744 

1905 

534,712 

411,869 

122,843 

1895 

351,915 

258,776 

93,139 

1906 

565,472 

448,830 

116,642 

1896 

358,529 

241,363 

117,166 

1907 

607,151 

453,349 

153,802 

1897 

377,399 

272,204 

105,195 

1908 

570,712 

383,588 

187,124 

1898 

386,383 

271,847 

H4,536 

TABLE  IX. — IMMIGRANT  BREADWINNERS  DESTINED  FOR  MASSACHU- 
SETTS, 1 897-1 908. a 


Year 

Number 

Year 

Number 

Year 

Number 

1897 

17,147 

1901 

30,174 

1905 

56,349 

1898 

15,983 

1902 

39,747 

1906 

55,737 

1899 

21,724 

1903 

49,941 

1907 

64,764 

1900 

29,369 

1904 

43,998 

1908 

31,335 

1  Massachusetts  Statistics  of  Manufactures,  1889,  pp.  61,  68,  202; 
1890,  pp.  91,  257,  315;  1891,  pp.  91,  127,  135;  1892,  pp.  33,  47,  399; 
1893,  pp.4i,  53, 3"!  1894,  pp.  51, 89, 204;  1896,  pp.  28,  70,  168;  1897, 
pp.  30,  70, 175;  1898,  pp.  29,  31, 33,  35,  73, 169;  1901,  pp.  70, 80,  82,  87; 
I9°3,  PP-  3°»  32»  39,  A2' — Annual  Reports  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor, 
XXXVII.,  pp.  285,  288,  316;  XXXVIII.,  pp.  322,  353,  355,  367,  403; 
XXXIX.,  pp-  2,  36;  XL.,  p.  2. 

3  Report  of  the  Commissioner-General  of  Immigration,  1897,  Table  IX; 
1898,  p.  26;  1899-1901,  Table  VII;  1902-1908,  Table  IX. 


542 


Appendix 


TABLE  X.— INCREASE  OR  DECREASE  ( — )  OF  THE  NUMBER  OF  BREAD- 

WINNERS,  CLASSIFIED  BY  SEX,  NATIVITY,  AND  OCCUPATION, 

IN  THE  UNITED  STATES,  1890-1900  (THOUSANDS). « 


Occupations 

Aggregate 

Native  white 

Foreign 
white 

Colored 

Native 
parents 

Foreign 
parents 

All  occupations,  exclusive 
of  farmers: 
Both  sexes       . 

5.304 

2,538 

1,580 

504 

682 

Males  

4,081 
1,223 

312 

2,014 
524 

I64 

1,232 
348 

105 

425 

79 
28 

410 
272 

15 

Females  

A.    Professional  service: 
Both  sexes. 

Males  

199 
"3 

1,423 

IOI 
63 

587 

65 
40 

495 

24 
4 

135 

9 
6 

206 

178 

28 
461 

Females 

B.    Business  and  clerical 
pursuits:  * 
Both  sexes  

Males  

1,070 
353 

3,569 

415 
172 

1,787 

376 
119 

980 

IOI 

34 
341 

Females  

C.    All  other  occupations  : 
Both  sexes  

Males  

2,812 
757 

—  21 

1,498 
289 

—5 

791 
189 

~3 

300 
4i 

—  II 

9 

—2 

Females. 

I.    Occupations  showing  a 
general  decrease  in  the 
demand  for  labor: 
Both  sexes..  

Males,  total  

—  20 

—4 
—  i 

2 

—3 

—  ii 

—  2 

Brick    and    tile 
makers,  etc  
Dairymen.  . 

—  IO 

—8 

—  I 

T 

—7 

—I 

,      .  T 

'Occupations  at  the  XII.  Census,  Table  34,  p.  cviii.,  and  Table  2, 
pp.  10  et  seq.  Compendium  of  the  XI.  Census,  1890,  Part  III,  Popula- 
tion, Table  78,  pp.  452  et  seq. 

*  Agents,  bankers,  and  brokers,  officials  of  banks  and  companies, 
manufacturers  and  officials,  etc.,  boarding-  and  lodging-house  keepers, 
bookkeepers  and  accountants,  clerks  and^copyists,  stenographers  and 
typewriters,  commercial  travelers,  salesmen  and  saleswomen,  hotel 
keepers,  merchants  and  dealers  (wholesale),  restaurant  keepers,  saloon 
keepers,  livery-stable  keepers,  and  undertakers. 


Appendix 


543 


TABLE  X. — (Continued). 


Native 

white 

Foreign 

Native 
parents 

Foreign 
parents 

white 

Colored 

All   others   in   this 
group  3  

—  2 

—  I 

—  I 

Females:  total  

—  I 

—  I 

Dairywomen 

—  I 

—  I 

II.    Occupations  in  which 
native     white     have 
been      displaced     by 
immigrants    or    their 
children: 
Both  sexes  

7 

—59 

37 

29 

Males,  total  

—  22 

—72 

34 

15 

I 

Boatmen.canalmen, 
pilots  and  sailors 

—  i 

2 

4. 

Boot   and    shoe- 
makers   and    re- 
pairers      

—  II 

—  12 

4 

—  2 

—  I 

Carpenters  anc 
joiners  

—  18 

—  25 

16 

—8 

Masons   (brick  anc 
stone)             .... 

—6 

5 

—  4 

4 

Tailors 

^8 

—  I 

4. 

"35 

Woodworkers    (not 
otherwise     speci- 
fied 1 

—  10 

—  7 

I 

—  4, 

All  others  in   this 

fiTOUD  * 

—  21 

—  18 

2 

—6 

—  i 

Females,  total  

29 

13 

3 

14 

—  i 

Cotton  mill  opera- 

28 

25 

—  i 

4 

_   .    Q 

Seamstresses  

y 
—  I 

—  i 

5 

Other  ^textile  mill  op 

—  3 

—  2 

2 

—  2 

—  i 

All  others  in  thi 
erouo5  .. 

—  2 

2 

'Includes  boxmakers  (paper),  broom  and  brush  makers. 

*  Includes  distillers  and  rectifiers,  harness  and  saddle  makers  and 
repairers,  hat  and  cap  makers,  leather  curriers  and  tanners,  marble  and 
stone  cutters,  millers,  and  plasterers. 

s  Includes  bleachery  and  dye  works  operatives,  hucksters  and 
peddlers. 


544  Appendix 

TABLE  X.— (Concluded). 


Native 

white 

Foreign 

P_«__-  j 

Occupations 

Aggregate 

Native 
parents 

Foreign 
parents 

parents 

III.    Occupations  in  which 
immigrants  have  been 
displaced     by  native 
white: 
Both  sexes      

87Q 

678 

288 

—  82 

—  c 

Males,  total  

810 

661 

241 

—40 

—52 

Agri  cultural 

68=; 

<;88 

i8d 

—  IO 

—  77  6 

All  others  in  agricul- 
tural pursuits  '.  . 

Blacksmiths            .  . 

13 
16 

16 

7 

TO 

—14 
-~2 

4 
™~  i 

Clerks  and  copyists 
Hostlers  

55 

U1 

24 

32 

—  2 

—  —  j 

I 

Saw   and   planing- 
mill  employees..  . 
All  others  in  this  8 

24 
6 

H 

3 

*j 
—2 

16 
j 

Females,  total  

69 

17 

47 

—42 

47 

Servants  and  wait- 

69 

16 

47 

—  41 

47 

Paper-    and    pulp- 

i 

—  I 

IV.    Occupations  showing 
a  general  increase  in 
the  demand  for  labor: 
Both  sexes  

2,704 

i,i73 

658 

405 

468 

Males  

2,044 

QI3 

SIQ 

336 

276 

Females  

660 

260 

T-JQ 

oo 
60 

102 

Aoy 

6  Negroes  only.  There  are  no  comparative  data  for  other  colored 
agricultural  laborers  at  the  XI.  Census. 

'Includes  gardeners,  florists,  nurserymen,  etc.,  lumbermen,  wood 
choppers,  etc.,  stock  raisers,  herders,  and  drovers. 

•  Includes  brewers  and  maltsters,  potters,  telegraph  and  telephone 
linemen,  trunk  and  leather-case  makers,  etc. 


TABLE  XL— NUMBER  AND  INCREASE  OR  DECREASE,  OF  FOREIGN-BORN 

(THOUSAN 


••••—•      1    1         ' 

Occupations. 

German 

Irish 

English  and  V 

1890 

1900 

Increase 
(+) 
or 
Decrease 
(-) 

1890 

Z900 

Increase 
(+) 
or 
Decrease 

1890 

1900 

Ir 
D 

Farmers,      planters,     and 
overseers  

282.7 
10.7 

69.6 
19.9 
37-9 

26.7 
95-6 

36.2 
20.4 
19.2 

IO.2 
36.3 
IS-S 
154-9 

97.0 
414.9 

263.7 
1  8.0 

66.5 
30-S 
30.0 

23.0 
83.6 

39-7 
18.8 
Z9.0 

& 

12.0 
129.6 

84.6 
421.6 

—  19.0 
+  7-3 

—  3-1 
+  10.6 
+  2.1 

—  3-7 

—  12.0 

+  3-5 
—   1.6 
—     .a 

ri:J 

-  3-S 
-25.3 

—  12.4 

+  6.7 

93-4 
2.9 
25.2 

IO.2 
14.4 

IS-4 
46.7 

21.7 
36.5 
27-9 

2.3 
S-8 
19.6 
202.4 

35-9 
245.4 

67.0 
7-9 
20.6 

14.9 
13.9 

15.4 
41.9 

21.2 
31.2 
22.9 

1.7 
3-8 
14.6 
158.9 

30.4 
247.9 

7II.2 

-26.4 
+  5.0 

-4-6 
+  4-7 
+     -5 

.0 

-  4-8 

-      .5 
-   5-3 
-  5-0 

-      .6 

—    2.O 

-   S.o 

-43.5 
—  5.5 

+  2.5 

—90.5 

7«.2 

4.6 

16.6 
10.3 

17.2 

16.2 

40.4 

21.  1 
9.1 

56.7 

1.6 
3.8 
23.8 
36.4 

26.7 
130.7 

57.7 
9.6 

IS.2 
14.2 
19-7 

16.1 
32.8 

20.5 
8.3 
44.9 

•9 
2.3 
19.6 
28.3 

21.6 

127.3 

- 

Manufacturers     and     offi- 
cials etc         

Merchants      and      dealers 
(except  wholesale)  

Bookkeepers,   accountants, 
clerks,  and  copyists  

Blacksmiths     and      m  a- 
chinists                   . 

Steam  railroad  employees. 
Miners  and  quarrymen  
Saw-  and  planing-raill  em- 
ployees .  . 

Tailors  .     . 

Textile  mill  operatives  
Laborers  (not  specified)3..  . 
Agricultural    laborers    and 
all  others  in  this  class.  .  . 
All  others  

Total  

1.337-7 

1,276.0 

-61.7 

804.7 

487.4 

439.0 

*XI.  Census,  Part  II.,  Table  109,  p.  484.    Reports  of  the  Immigration  Cor, 
•Laborers  in  1890  include  in  some  agricultural  districts  agricultural  labore 


[ALE  BREADWINNERS,  CLASSIFIED  BY  NATIONALITY  AND  OCCUPATION 

•IQOO.1 


Scotch. 

Bohemian. 

Hungarian. 

Italian 

Increase 

Increase 

Increase 

Imcrease 

JO 

I90O 

or 
Decrease 

1890 

1900 

or 
Decrease 

1890 

1900 

or 
Decrease 

1890 

1900 

or 
Decrease 

.1 

16.5 

+     -4 

14.4 

18.1 

+  3-7 

.8 

1.4 

•f     .6 

2.2 

4.4 

+    2.2 

.0 

3-3 

-f  2.3 

•3 

•5 

•h    •* 

.2 

.6 

+     -4 

.2 

l.i 

•f     -9 

•9 
•7 
•7 

4.4 
4.6 
5-8 

ft? 

+    2.1 

1.2 

i 

2.1 

I.O 
I.O 

+     .9 
+     -6 

1-3 

•4 

•4 

2.9 
1.4 

I.O 

+  1.6 

-f-  i.o 
+     .6 

7.0 
•5 
2.3 

16.0 

2.0 

3-8 

-f  9.0 

tii 

•  •7 

5-3 
12.5 

+     .6 

+      .2 

.6 
2.7 

.7 
3-7 

i«;z 

.5 
'5 

.9 
1.4 

+     '.9 

.8 
3-3 

1.6 

IO.2 

-f     .8 
+  6.9 

'•7 
:  3 

7.8 
2.7 
9-7 

+    T'-l 
—    2.1 

x.o 

.7 
•9 

1.8 
.8 
1.6 

-f      .8 
+      .1 
-f-      .7 

•3 
X.3 
7-3 

,1 

26.5 

t  5 

+19.2 

•4 
10.3 
9-7 

1.6 

17.3 
25.5 

+  7*0 
4-15-8 

.4 
.1 

t-7 

r-8 

.4 

I.O 

3-6 
7-3 

.0 
—     I.I 

~     -5 

1-3 
3-3 

.2 
8.2 

.7 
4.9 
.4 
10.0 

-     .6 
+  1.6 

+       .2 

+  1.8 

.1 
x.8 
•3 
II.  8 

.1 
3-7 
I.O 

19.8 

.0 

.2 
2-3 
1.2 
39-0 

•5 
7-8 
3-9 
91.8 

-f     -3 
+  5-5 

5 

5 

—. 

M 

7.2 
37.8 

+      -7 
+  5-3 

3-6 
11.9 

4.8 

19.3 

+  7-4 

.7 
8.8 

1.4 

23.8 

+     -7 
-fiS.o 

6.5 
28.2 

12.2 
76.7 

+  5-7 
+48.5 

129.9 

II-7 

51-3 

71.4 

20.  1' 

36.S 

88.4 

+5I-9 

114.1 

276.4 

+  162.3 

vol.  i,  pp.  821-829,  Table  A. 


Appendix  545 

TABLE  XII. — FOREIGN-BORN   ENGAGED    IN  GAINFUL  OCCUPATIONS 
IN  GERMANY,  1900.' 


Occupations 

Thou 

sands 

Males 

Females 

Agriculture  

en 

21 

Trade  

•77 

IO 

Transportation  

M 

Manufactures  

245 

•12 

Common  labor  

26 

IO 

Professional  pursuits  

18 

IO 

Living  on  income  from  property  

18 

16 

Servants  

I 

21 

Total  

4.17 

122 

TABLE  XIII. — FOREIGN-BORN  IN  GERMANY,  BY  COUNTRY  OF  BIRTH 
(THOUSANDS),  1880-1900.* 


Year 

Total 

Austria- 
Hungary 

Russia 

Italy 

All  other 
countries 

1880 

419 

150 

57 

8 

204 

1890 

518 

206 

53 

13 

246 

I9OO 

823 

362 

89 

62 

310 

Increase 

1880-1900 

404 

212 

32 

54 

1  06 

1  Erganzungsheft  zu  den  Viertelsjahrsheften  zur  Statistik  des  Deut- 
schen  Reichs,  1905.  Heft  I.  Die  Deutschen  im  Auslande  und  die 
Auslander  im  Deutschen  Reich,  p.  40. 

a  Ibid. 


546 


Appendix 


TABLE  XIV.— FOREIGN-BORN  POPULATION  FROM  THE  SCANDINAVIAN  COUNTRIES 
AND  FROM  SOUTHERN  AND  EASTERN  EUROPE,  BY  STATES,  1880,  1890,  1900, 

AND  I9I0.1 


States 

From  the  Scandinavian  Countries 

From  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe 

1880 

1890 

1900 

1910 

1880 

1890 

1900 

1910 

Minnesota.... 

107,768 
46,046 
17,869 
16,685 
644 
1,185 
5" 
12,755 
1,524 
1,942 

215,215 
72,873 
65,588 
46,341 
6,411 
3,506 
2,382 
16.863 
21,413 
7,333 

236,670 
72,611 
76,051 
40,107 
9.741 
5.621 
2,989 
18,285 
26,254 
9,007 

243,899 
66,586 
100,654 
39,592 
15,513 
9,775 
4,078 
17,826 
68,228 
20,153 

7,577 
2,777 
6,978 
7.006 
191 

100 

78 
237 

424 
991 

21,988 
3,562 
18,787 
12,984 
2,533 
776 
1,320 
789 
4.949 
4,005 

30,544 
6,709 
33,735 
16,283 
6,655 
1.280 
2,282 
1,519 
7.657 
4,129 

110,793 
1,603,071 

76,833 
34,593 
65.559 
47,177 
23,644 
7,074 
9,607 
10,482 
44,784 
22,503 

The  Dakotas.. 
Nebraska  
Montana  
Idaho 

Wyoming  
Utah  

Washington  .  . 

Total  .  .  , 

206,929 
233,333 

457,925 
475,324 

497,336 
566,973 

586,304 
664,196 

26,359 
152,339 

71,693 
626,677 

342,256 
4,466,244 

All  other  

Total,  U.  S..  . 

440,262 

933,249 

1,064,309 

1,250,500 

178,698 

698,370 

1,713,864 

4,808,500 

TABLE  XV.— EMIGRATION  FROM  THE  UNITED  KINGDOM,  BY  DESTINA- 
TION OF  EMIGRANTS,  1840-1909. a 


Year 

& 

I 

§ 

British  South 
Africa 

Australia  and 
New  Zealand 

Other  Countries 

Tota; 

X84O 

32.2Q7 

40,642 

IE  SCQ 

T  QC8 

OO  74.7 

1841 

38,164 

45.OI7 

72  .62  5 

2786 

Il8  5Q2 

1842 

54,123 

6*.  8  52 

8.574 

1.875 

128  74.4 

1843 

23,518 

28,77«» 

•1.4.78 

*»"v)O 

I.88I 

57,212 

1844 

22  ,924 

47,660 

2  22Q 

I  877 

7O  686 

1845 

31,803 

58,578 

87O 

2  770 

O7  5OI 

1846 

43,439 

82,279 

2,74.7 

I  826 

I2O  851 

1847 

109,680 

142,154 

4.04.0 

I  4.87 

258  27O 

1848 

31,065 

188,277 

27  QO4 

A  887 

*«T»*/** 

24.8  089 

1849 

41  ,367 

219,450 

•12  TOT 

6  4.QO 

2OQ  4.08 

1  Compiled  from  the  United  States  Census  of  1880,  vol.  i.,  pp.  492- 
495;  XIII.  Census.  Population,  vol.  i.,  Table  33,  pp.  834-838. 

s  Compiled  from  Statistical  Abstracts  ofthe  United  Kingdom  of  Great 
Britain.  Reprint  of  the  Statistical  Abstracts  for  the  United  Kingdom  for 
1840-1854,  p.  84;  14,  p.  122;  29,  p.  161;  42,  p.  239;  and  57,  p.  363. 


Appendix 

TABLE  XV.— (Continued). 


547 


Year 

£ 

| 
« 

1 

a 

£ 

British  South 
Africa 

Australia  and 
New  Zealand 

Other  Countries 

Total 

1850 

32,961 

223,078 

I6.O17 

8  771 

2$O  R  -in 

1851 

42,605 

267,157 

21,5-12 

4.472 

-l-je  r\f)f. 

1852 

32,873 

2  44.,  26l 

87  881 

37/1O 

o«5o»y°° 

ifiR  "7fiA 

1851 

34*522 

210,885 

61  ,401 

>/4y 
3I2Q 

300,704 

I8S4 

43,76i 

I01,o65 

8-1  217 

1  166 

329,937 

1855 

17,966 

101,414 

52.1OQ 

3118 

o-^O'^y 
1  76  8O7 

1856 

16,378 

111,837 

44,584 

3.755 

1  76  ^  5J  A. 

1857 

21,001 

126  QO5 

61  248 

1  721 

1  /",aO'f 
212  87  C 

1858 

9,704 

eg,  716 

1Q  205 

52^7 

•<12,O75 
III  Q*72 

1850 

6,689 

7O.1O1 

11  .Oil 

12  427 

±io'y/-£ 
I2O  A12 

1860 

9,786 

87.5OO 

24.1O2 

6,88  1 

128  j.6o 

1861 

12,707 

40,764 

21,7l8 

7.56l 

OI  77O 

1862 

15,522 

c8  706 

41  84.1 

5141 

121  21/1 

1863 

18,083 

14.6  811 

51  O54 

58O8 

221  7^8 

1864 

12,721 

I4.7.O42 

4O.Q42 

8.IQ5 

^•^O'/O0 

2O8  900 

1865 

17,211 

147,258 

17,28l 

"»*yo 

8  O4Q 

209  801 

1866 

13,255 

l6l,OOO 

24.O07 

6.51O 

204  882 

1867 

12,160 

I26,O5I 

I4.O21 

4.748 

I56.O82 

1868 

12,332 

1  08  40O 

12  112 

5  Oil 

1  18  187 

1869 

20,921 

14.6.7-17 

14  457 

4  185 

1  86  300 

1870 

27,168 

ic  -i  ,4.66 

16,526 

5.151 

202  511 

1871 

24,954 

I  50,788 

11,695 

5,114 

102.  751 

1872 
I8*7! 

24,382 
29,045; 

161,782 
166.710 



15.248 
25  117 

9,082 
7  411 

210,494 

228  145 

1874. 

20,728 

1  1  -1,774. 

52.581 

IO.l8o 

IQ7  272 

1875 

12,306 

Sl.IQl 

14,7  CQ 

12.426 

I4O.675 

1876 

Q,^5 

54,554 

12,106 

Il.l84 

IO0.460 

1877 

7,720 

45  48l 

1O  1  18 

11,856 

IO5.IQ5 

1878 

10,652 

54  6Q4 

l6  47O 

II.O77 

1  12  ,9O2 

1870 

17,052 

Ot'^yt 

OI.8o6 

4O.Q5Q 

11,557 

164,274 

1880 

20,902 

166  57O 

24  184 

15.886 

227,542 

1881 

21.012 

176  IO4 

22  682 

20,^04 

24.1,002  i 

1882 

40,4.4,1 

181  001 

17,280 

10,711 

270,166 

188-; 

44,185 

101.57"% 

71  ,264 

11,006 

320,118 

1884 

-ilj-id. 

I55.28O 

44,255 

11,510 

242,179 

1885 

10  818 

T  -17  68? 

1O.1Q5 

10,724 

207,644 

1886 

24.745 

152  7IO 

41.O76 

12,169 

232,900 

1887 

•12  .02  "5 

201,526 

14,l8l 

13,753 

281,487 

1888 

14.851 

105,086 

31,127 

17,962 

279,928 

1889 

28,269 

168,771 

28,294 

28,461 

253,795 

Appendix 


TABLE  XV.—  (Concluded). 

c 

o> 

3 

2« 

1 

11 

1 

0* 

oj"c3 

Year 

&  3 

1° 

"3 

« 

jl 

1 

0 

Total 

2 

21,179 

22,004 

2l8,Il6 

1890 

'5     g 

I  ^6*^0  S 

^  '  *  »*  /  7 

19,547 

20,987 

218,507 

1891 

21  26A 

T  so'mo 

*  "*\y^/ 

20,799 

210,042 

T  Qft^ 

3'       2 

I4.8.Q4.Q 

1  1  ,203 

23,930 

208,814 

IO93 

T  Q.f\A 

T*7  A  Cfi 

»^Wf»f^y 

104  ooi 

10,017 

156,030 

1094 
1895 

J.  f  jnOy 

16,622 

126,502 

20,234 

*  **ry  *•  / 

10,567 

1^256 

185,181 

1896 

15,267 

98,921 

24.594 

io,354 

12,789 

161,925 

1897 

15,571 

85,324 

21,109 

12,061 

12,395 

146,460 

1898 

17,640 

80,494 

19.756 

10,693 

12,061 

140,644 

1899 

16,410 

92,482 

14.432 

",467 

11,571 

146,362 

1900 

i8,433 

102,797 

20,815 

14,922 

11,848 

168,815 

1901 

15,757 

104,195 

23,143 

15.350 

13.270 

171,7^5 

1902 

26,293 

108,498 

43,206 

14,345 

13.320 

205,662 

1903 

59,652 

123,663 

50,206 

12,375 

14,054 

259,950 

1904 

69,681 

146,446 

26,818 

14.581 

27L435 

1905 

82,437 

122,370 

26,307 

I5',i39 

15.824 

262,077 

1906 

II4.859 

144,817 

22,804 

I9,33i 

23,326 

325.137 

1907 

151,216 

170,264 

20,925 

24,767 

28,508 

395.680 

1908 

81,321 

96,869 

19.568 

33,569 

31,872 

263,199 

1909 

85,887 

109,700 

22,017 

37.620 

33,537 

288,761 

TABLE  XVI.— CONGESTION  IN  DUBLIN:     CLASSIFICATION  OF  TENE- 
MENTS OF  FOUR  ROOMS  OR  LESS,  BY  NUMBER  OF  ROOMS 
AND  BY  NUMBER  OF  PERSONS  PER  TENEMENT,  1901.* 


Number  of  tenements  of  

i  room 

2  rooms 

3  rooms 

4  rooms 

i 

3.278 

702 

172 

IOI 

2 

5.544 

2,234 

779 

597 

3 

4.392 

2,231 

900 

772 

4 

3.384 

2,240 

952 

816 

5 

2,302 

2,022 

825 

818 

6 

1,477 

1.575 

765 

680 

7 

797 

1,205 

620 

562 

8 

362 

773 

433 

422 

9 

US 

367 

238 

320 

10 

47 

1-75 

163 

201 

ii 

13 

62 

74 

98 

12  or  more 

6 

34 

50 

97 

Total 

21,747 

13,620 

5.971 

5.484 

1  Census  of  Ireland,  1901.    General  Report,  p.  173,  Table  50. 

Appendix 


549 


TABLE  XVI.— (Continued). 


Summary 


Total 

With  4  rooms  or  less , 

Number  of  persons  per  room: 

Not  more  than  one 

Not  more  than  two 

Not  more  than  three , 

More  than  three.. , 


Number  of  tenement* 
59.263 
46,822 


10.351 

15.039 

9.996 

11,436 


TABLE  XVII. — "REPRESENTATIVE"  HOUSEHOLD  EXPENDITURES  FOR 

FOOD  IN  THE  IRON  DISTRICT  OF  THE  SOUTH,  FOR  THE  PERIOD 

OF  ONE  WEEK  IN  1909.* 


•o 

Persons 

Expenditure 

"3  t 

•cja 

per  household 

Nutrition 

for  food 

kfl 

Nationality 

Income 

Jfe 

Adults 

Children 

household 

For  the 
week 

Per  man 
per  day 

2 

) 

$10.50 

2 

3 

21.7 

$6.48 

$0.30 

3 
4 
6 

(  South 
r  Italian 

) 

Q.OO 
22.OO 
10.50 

2 

3 

2 

i 

2 

5 

14.7 
28.7 
28.7 

6.1  1 
8.16 
10.35 

0.41 
0.28 
0.36 

7 

16.00 

3 

2 

24-5 

9.10 

0-37 

9 

ig.OO 

3 

I 

23-8 

7.65 

0.32 

10 
ii 

American 
White 

25.00 
18.00 

2 

2 

3 
3 

21.7 

21.7 

7.88 
7.80 

0.36 
0.36 

12 

12.00 

2 

— 

12.6 

3-65 

O.29 

13 

23.00 

2 

I 

15.6 

9-63 

0.62 

TABLE  XVIII. — EARNINGS  AND  EXPENSES  IN  MASSACHUSETTS,  1800, 
1830,  and  1860.' 


1800 

1830 

1860 

Expenses  of  a  family  of  four 

&12Q 

$4.  -II 

$587 

Earnings: 
Master  carpenter  

^25 

455 

520 

Journeyman  carpenter 

266 

•JQO 

4.ce 

Master  mason 

soo 

soo 

•too 
625 

Journeyman  mason  

•Z7C 

4^8 

5OO 

Master  painter  

•^25 

455 

52O 

Journeyman  painter  

26O 

455 

Laborer  

226 

V5 

1  Reports  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  9,  pp.  215-221. 
3  Third  Annual  Report  of  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Statistics  of 
Labor  (1871-1872),  pp.  514-517. 


550 


Appendix 


TABLE   XIX.— AVERAGE    INCOME    AND    EXPENDITURES  OF    WAGE- 
EARNERS  IN  SPECIFIED  OCCUPATIONS,  IN  NEW  JERSEY,  1885.' 


• 

Surplus  (  -f  ) 

*< 

J 

1 

1 

*< 

a 

or  deficit  (-) 

Occupations 

Number  c 

famlies 

Average  nun 
in  famil3 

G  O 
£* 

l! 

'3  o 
M 

t 

i* 

M 
»  • 

Expenditure 
family 

0 

Of  head  of 
family  3 

Glass-blowers  . 

48 

4-9 

1-3 

$941 

$1,070 

$737 

+$333 

+$204 

Other  glass- 

workers  .  .  . 

34 

4.8 

1.6 

693 

813 

654 

+  159 

+      58 

Blacksmiths.  . 

ii 

5-9 

1.6 

712 

747 

674 

+     73 

+      19 

Iron-  workers. 

15 

4-8 

1-5 

493^ 

573 

538 

~     45 

Shoemakers.  . 

32 

1.4 

542 

583 

565 

4~     18 

-     23 

Carpenters.  .  . 

12 

5-5 

1-5 

545 

678 

661 

+    17 

-     16 

Machinists.  .  . 

24 

4-9 

1-5 

558 

629 

619 

+      10 

-     61 

Flax  -  mill 

workers  .... 

28 

4.9 

1-7 

374 

482 

501 

-19 

-   127 

Silk  -  mill 

workers  

34 

4.2 

1-5 

322 

368 

459 

-91 

-   137 

TABLE  XX.— AVERAGE  INCOME  AND  EXPENDITURES  OF  UNSKILLED 

LABORERS  IN  NEW  JERSEY,  CLASSIFIED  BY  NATIVITY  AND 

SOURCE  OF  INCOME,  1885.* 


Item 

t     Breadwinners  in  the  family 

Father  alone 

Father  and  children 

Native 

English 

Irish 

Native 

English 

Irish 

Number  of  families 

20 

X 

9 

13 

3 

6 

Earnings  of: 
Father  

$381 

$519 

$246 

$368 
222 

$494 
175 

$249 
246 

Children  

Total 

$381 

361 

$519 
567 

$246 
272 

$590 

578 

$669 
634 

$495 
531 

Expenditures  

1  Eighth  Annual  Report  of  the  New  Jersey  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor 
and  Ind.  (1885),  p.  147. 

a  Income  of  family  less  expenditures  of  family. 

3  Earnings  of  head  of  family  less  expenditures  of  family. 

*  Eighth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  New  Jersey,  1885, 
PP-  30-34- 


Appendix 

TABLE  XX.— (Concluded). 


551 


Item 

Breadwinners  in  the  family 

Father  alone 

Father  and  children 

Native 

English 

Irish 

Native 

English 

Irish 

Number  of  families 

20 

I 

9 

12 

3 

6 

-$36 
-282 

Surplus  (+)  or 
deficit  (  —  ) 

+$20 
+20 

-48 

-$26 
-26 

+$12 
—210 

+$35 
—  140 

Earnings  of  father 
over  expenses 
Surplus  (4-)  or 
deficit  (—  )  .. 

TABLE  XXI. — AVERAGE  WAGES  AND  AVERAGE  EXPENSES  OF  WORKING 
FAMILIES  WITH  DEFICITS,  IN  OHIO,  1885.* 


|I 

S, 

0)   >> 

Sx 

to  one 
m 

if 

i 
fc 

0)  g 

75 

1*1 

Occupation 

£« 

p 

§«2 

f 

«£ 

a-2 

f 

3 

§ 

< 

o< 

Stonecutters  .  . 

4 

5-° 

4-5 

i.i 

$505 

$507 

$2 

3-5 

Machinists  

27 

4-2 

5-3 

0.8 

556 

571 

15 

2.4 

Cabinet- 

makers  

6 

4.5 

4.3 

1.05 

481 

537 

56 

3-5  a 

Iron  workers.  . 

21 

57 

5-7 

I.O 

679 

745 

66 

5-3 

Wood  carvers  .  . 

5 

5-6 

3-4 

1.6 

659 

772 

113 

2.1* 

Cigar  makers... 
Miners    .    .  . 

20 

cy 

4.8 
5-8 

3-2 
4.1 

1-5 
1.4 

394 
3<>3 

508 

422 

114 
119 

4-5 
2.9 

1  Eleventh  Annual  Report  of  the  Ohio  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  (1885), 
Table  27,  p.  117.    IX  Census,  Population  Part  II.,  p.  596. 
3  Cabinet  makers  and  upholsterers. 
*  Woodworkers  other  than  cabinetmakers,  carpenters,  and  joiners. 


552 


Appendix 


TABLE  XXII.— ORGANIZED   WORKERS   AND   MALE  WHITE   BREAD- 
WINNERS, ENGAGED  IN   NON-AGRICULTURAL  PURSUITS,  IN 
ILLINOIS  AND  NEW  JERSEY,  CLASSIFIED  BY  NATIVITY.* 


Illinois,  1886 

New  Jersey,  1887 

Nativity 

Breadwinners 

Organized 

Breadwinners 

Organized 

Number: 
Native 
Foreign-bora 

423.290 
308.595 

25.985 
57.163 

243.093 
137.385 

24,463 
26,704 

Total 

Per  Cent: 

Native 
Foreign-bora 

73L885 

57-8 
42.2 

83,148 

31-3 
68.7 

380,478 

63-9 
36-1 

5LI67 

47-8 
52.2 

Total 

1  00.0 

1  00.0 

1  00.0 

100.0 

TABLE  XXIII. — MALE  LABOR  UNION  MEMBERSHIP  AND  IMMIGRATION, 
NEW  YORK  STATE,  1897-1910. 


H 

in 

it 

jl* 

Year 

Se« 

Year 

i] 

n 

||* 

3| 

£fz 
IJs 

33 

its 

$** 

»H^'** 

1897 
1898 
1899 

162,690 
163,562 
200,932 

55,871 
53,310 
70,740 

1904 

1905 
1906 

378,859 

370,971 
386,869 

193,430 
241,689 
269,477 

I90O 
I9OI 

233,553 
261,523 

99,104 
106,817 

1907 
1908 

422,561 
361,761 

297,300 
173,022 

1902 
1903 

313,592 
380,845 

154,872 
198,620 

1909 
1910 

360,319 

453,8oi 

145,036 
207,021 

1  Fourth  Biennial  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  of  Illi- 
nois, 1886,  pp.  224-226;  Population  at  XI.  Census,  Part  II,  pp.  552-553; 
ibid.,  Table  116,  p.  586;  Tenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics 
of  Labor  and  Industries  of  New  Jersey,  p.  15. 

» Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  of  New  York  State, 
1910,  vol.  II.,  Table  34,  p.  xlix. 

*  Reports  of  the  Commissioner-General  ~of  Immigration,  1897,  p. 
38;  1898,  p.  26;  1899,  p.  17;  1900,  p.  20;  1901,  p.  17;  1902,  p.  29;  1903, 
P-  33J  1904,  p.  30;  1905,  p.  345  1906,  p.  37;  1907,  p.  35;  1908,  p.  39; 
1909,  P- 575I9IO,  p.  55. 


Appendix 


SS3 


TABLE  XXIV.— URBAN  POPULATION,  MEMBERSHIP  OF  LABOR  UNIONS 

AND  PERCENTAGE  OF  ORGANIZED  INDUSTRIAL  WAGE-EARNERS 

IN  NEW  YORK  AND  KANSAS,  1 900-1909.  * 


Union  membership  of  both  sexes 

V«»r 

Urban  population 

both  sexes  a 

Number 

Percentage  of  indus- 

trial wage-earners3 

New  York 

Kansas 

New  York 

Kansas 

New  York 

Kansas 

I9OO 

5,293.1" 

330,903 

245,381 

6,341 

18.3 

57 

I9OI 

5,486,849 

347,191 

276,141 

8,649 

2O.6 

7.8 

I9O2 

5,675,587 

363,479 

329,101 

7,715 

24.6 

7.0 

1903 

5,864,225 

379,767 

395,598 

9,657 

29.6 

8.7 

1904 
1905 

6,052,963 
6,241,701 

395,953 
412,241 

391,676 
383,226 

12,074 

12,454 

29.3 
28.6 

10.9 

II.2 

1906 

6,430439 

428,529 

398,494 

12,187 

29.8 

II.O 

1907 

6,619,177 

444,817 

436,792 

13.058 

32.6 

11.8 

1908 

6,807,915 

461  ,005 

372,459 

23,995 

27.8 

21.6 

1909 

6,996,653 

477.293 

372,729 

21,385 

27.9 

19-3 

TABLE  XXV. — DAILY  WAGES  IN  STEEL  COMPANY  No.  i,  1880-1908.4 


Occupations  • 

1880 

I88S 

1890 

1895 

1900 

1903 

1908 

I.  Bessemer  Depart- 
ment: 

Laborer  

$1.2-? 

$I.OO 

$I.IO 

$I.IO 

$I.IO 

I.V> 

$1.45 

I.  OS 

2.IO 

2.2O 

Fireman  

1.38 

.89 

I.OO 

.70 

I.9O 

Carpenter 

1.22 

I.  -1C 

.75 

I.9O 

Metal  breaker.  .  . 
Skull  cracker  .  .  . 

2.20 

1.32 

i-55 
i.  60 

1-33 
1.18 

1.38 

•55 
•55 

1.65 

1.64 

Ashman  . 

1.45 

.95 

I.OO 

.50 

1-55 

1  Annual  Report  of  the  New  York  Bureau  of  Labor,  1909,  p.  xxxviii, 
Table  7;  Annual  Reports  of  the  Kansas  Bureau  of  Labor,  1900-1909. 
a  Census  figures  for  1900,  estimates  for  subsequent  years. 

*  The  number  of  industrial  wage-earners  at  the  XII.  Census  (1900) 
in  New  York  was  1,337,000,  and  in  Kansas,  110,000.     The  method  of 
classification  and  computation  is  explained  in  an  article  by  the  writer 
in  the  Journal  of  Political  Economy,  1911,  March  and  April:  "Social- 
Economic  Classes  of  the  Population  of  the  United  States. " 

*  Report  of  the  Immigration  Commission,  vol.  8,  pp.  448,  449. 
'Only  such  occupations  have  been  selected  for  which  comparable 

data  are  available. 


554  Appendix 

TABLE  XXV.— (Concluded). 


Occupation 

1880 

1885 

1800 

1805 

i  poo 

1003 

1908 

1.  08 

1.30 

I.4O 

l.d.5 

I.OO 

1.30 

1.35 

I.IO 

I.OO 

1.30 

1-35 

.68 

•75 

I.OO 

1.30 

1.35 

II.    Blast  Furnaces: 

z.  io 

1.04 

.00 

.00 

1.20 

1.30 

1.^8 

Engineer         . 

i.oo 

1.65 

.60 

.60 

2.2O 

2.50 

2.65 

.15 

•  1O 

•65 

2.IO 

2.25 

Blacksmith 
Helper  

1.84 

.... 

•oy 
.26 
.IO 

•45 
.15 

.60 
•25 

2.00 

•3° 

2.10 
1.38 

1.55 

.17 

•35 

•3° 

.84 

2.05 

Carpenter 
Fireman 

1.55 

1.27 

I.OO 

•50 
.17 

-45 
.30 

.60 
•5° 

.80 
.75 

1.90 

1.85 

Hot-stove  tender 

.26 

.45 

.60 

.70 

,80 

.IO 

.OO 

.20 

•55 

.60 

.15 

.15 

•5° 

.50 

.60 

Coke  fillers  
Cinder  man 

1-55 
1.55 

1.  15 

•25 
.20 

.OO 
.26 

.40 

•50 

.45 

.60 

•55 

Fillers  

I.5O 

I.I5 

.25 

•35 

•44 

.40 

•50 

.OO 

.20 

•32 

.15 

•45 

.00 

1.  20 

.32 

•3O 

•38 

III.  Mechanical  De- 
partment: 

Brick  mason: 
Minimum  

1.85 

1.57 

1.05 

1.  80 

1.  80 

2.25 

2.47 

Maximum  
Patternmaker:  . 
Minimum  
Maximum  
Blacksmith: 
Minimum  
Maximum  
Boilermaker: 
Minimum 

2-45 

1-55 
2.50 

1.65 
2.70 

I  60 

3-42 

1-54 
2-43 

i  62 

2.50 
1-35 

2.  2O 

I  75 

3-00 

1.62 

2.58 

I  65 

3-65 

2.10 
2.70 

I  6O 

3-24 

1.48 
3-00 

i-43 
2.92 

i  48 

3-60 

1-55 
3-25 

1-57 
3-25 

1.62 

Maximum  
Roofer: 
Minimum 

2-75 
I  5O 

2.25 
i  ii 

*•/»> 
2.50 

I  6O 

*-v»3 
2.47 

I  "?J. 

2.85 

I  55 

2.67 
i  10 

2-95 

I  45 

Maximum  
Carpenter: 
Minimum  
Maximum...  .  . 
Painter: 
Minimum  

2.OO 

1.60 
2.50 

1.  20 

^•o1 

2.50 

1.  60 
1.80 

2.70 

t"Oet 

2.50 

2.OO 
2.  2O 

*OO 
2.75 

i-55 
2.40 

*«jp* 

2.40 

1.29 
2-37 

1.98 

2.65 
1.41 

2.60 

2.17 

Maximum  

2.IO 

2  25 

2.47 

Mason  (helper)  : 
Minimum  
Maximum  

I.IO 
1.30 

•70 
1.48 

.... 

I.I5 

1-35 

i.iS 
1.40 

I.IO 
1-35 

1.20 
1.48 

Appendix  555 

TABLE  XXVI. — PER  CENT  OF  MACHINE- MINED  BITUMINOUS  COAL 
AND  PER  CENT  RATIO  OF  FOREIGN-BORN  FROM  SOUTHERN  AND 
EASTERN  EUROPE  FOR  EACH  OF  THE  PRINCIPAL  COAL-PRODUCING 
STATES,  1900  and  1910.* 


State 

Mined  by  machinery 

Ratio  of  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europeans  to 
total  population3 

Per  cent  of  min- 
ers of  S.  and  £. 
European  par- 
entage 

1910 

1900 

1910 

1900 

1900 

Ohio  

84.44 
64.03 
48.87 
45-51 
45-37 
38.63 

46.53 
43-91 
27.36 

33-65 
15.09 

19-73 

5-5 
0-3 
1.8 
10.9 

1.2 

7-9 

1-5 

O.I 

0.5 
4-9 
0.6 
3-0 

9.0 
0-5 
5-5 
36.0 

9-5 
22.0 

Kentucky.  .. 

Indiana 

Pennsylvania 
West  Virginia 
Illinois  

TABLE  XXVII. — PER  CENT  OF  MINERS  OF  SOUTHERN  AND  EASTERN 

EUROPEAN  PARENTAGE,*  LIVES  LOST  PER  MILLION  TONS,  AND 

PER  1,000  EMPLOYEES,  IN  BITUMINOUS  COAL  MINES.  * 


State 

Per  cent  of  miners  of 
S.  and  E.  European 
parentage.  1900 

Fatal  accidents  per 
i,  ooo  employees, 
1889-1908 

Lives  lost  per 
million  tons, 
1866-1908 

Pennsylvania.  .  .  . 
Illinois  

36.0S 

22  .0 

2.71 
2.33 

3-83 

3-94 

Oklahoma  
West  Virginia  
Chio  

I4.O 

9-5 
o.o 

5.07 
4.64 
2.14 

I34l 

3-95 

6.0 

2.15 

5.22 

5.5 

2.32 

3.73 

2.O 

4«55 

7.27 

\laryland      •  •  •  • 

I«S 

1.77 

1.96 

Tennessee  

I.O 

4.38 

9.04 

Kentucky  

0.5 

1.  60 

3-34 

1  U.  S.  Geological  Survey,  Production  of  Coal,  1910,  p.  51.  These  six 
States  produced  90  per  cent  of  the  total  output  of  machine-mined  coal  in 
the  United  States  for  1900-1909,  and  80  per  cent  of  the  total  output  of 
bituminous  coal  for  1910. 

*  Advance  information  issued  to  the  "press  by  the  [Director  of  the 
Census. 

J  Computed  from  XII.  Census  Report  on  Occupations,  Table  41. 

*  Bureau  of  Labor  Bulletin  No.  go,  Table  XXIX,  pp.  452,  6/1. 
s  Includes  both  bituminous  and  anthracite  mines. 


556 


Appendix 


TABLE  XXVIII.— NUMBER  OF  EMPLOYEES  AND  FATAL  ACCIDENT 
RATES  IN  THE  ANTHRACITE  MINES  OF  PENNSYLVANIA,  1870-1909.' 


b 

L 

Is 

1 

w/3> 

S& 

SB  g^ 

89  1? 

0)   « 

m  o 

s'S 

gl 

l§§ 

8-g 

§•2 

'S*>'S 

Years 

£  i 

3s 

Years 

jo  gJ 

^  a 

•O  o  3 

go 

I* 

g§2 

aj 

« 

||1 

W^, 

3q 

3§* 

w*^ 

3  § 

£M" 

i 

i2M" 

I" 

1870 

36 

5-93 

14.89 

1890 

120 

3-15 

8.4O 

1871 

37 

5-60 

13.52 

1891 

123 

3-47 

8.61 

1872 

45 

4.98 

14.32 

1892 

130 

3-21 

8.16 

1873 

48 

5.48 

12.57 

1893 

138 

3.30 

8.63 

1874 

53 

4.33 

11.59 

1894 

I4O 

3-19 

8.75 

1875 

70 

3-40 

10.17 

1895 

144 

2.93 

7-39 

1876 

70 

3-24 

9.73 

1896 

150 

3-34 

9-32 

1877 

67 

2.90 

7.85 

I897 

150 

2.83 

8.04 

1878 

64 

2.92 

8.95 

1898 

142 

2.89 

7.78 

1879 

69 

3-81 

8.44 

1899 

141 

3.28 

7.62 

1880 
1881 

11 

2-75 

3-59 

7.22 
7.98 

1900 
1901 

144 
148 

2.86 
3-47 

7.16 
7-65 

1882 

82 

3-54 

8.30 

1902 

148 

2.03 

7.26 

1883 
1884 

91 

IOI 

3-53 
3-28 

8.56 
9.10 

1903 
1904 

152 

161 

3-41 
3.69 

6.89 
8.08 

1885 

100 

3.31 

8.68 

1905 

168 

3.83 

8.19 

1886 

103 

2.71 

7.16 

1906 

166 

3-35 

7.72 

1887 

107 

2.97 

7-50 

1907 

169 

4.20 

8.23 

1888 

122 

2.98 

7.81 

1908 

175 

3-88 

8.12 

1889 

120 

3-32 

9.09 

1909 

171 

3-31 

7.07 

» Report  of  the  Pennsylvania  Department  of  Mines,  1909,  Part  I, 
Table  L.,  p.  57. 


Appendix 


557 


TABLE  XXIX. — NUMBER  OF  FATAL  ACCIDENTS  AND  RATIO  PER  1000 
EMPLOYEES  ON  RAILROADS  AND  IN  COAL  MINES,  1889-1908. « 


Number 

Ratio  per  1000  employees 

I 

!! 

1 

is  mines, 
Canada 

S 
1 

11 

1 

1 

s  mines, 
Canada 

Years 

1 

H 

1 

jl 

tf 

II 

1 

il 

J 

<3<u 

£ 

id 

J 

Sgl 

J 

IN 

S 

3 

& 

* 

1 

1889 

1,179 

1,972 

397 

681 

8.55 

2.80 

3-31 

245 

1890 
1891 

i,459 
,533 

2,451 
2,660 

378 
428 

852 
952 

9.61 

3.27 

3-39 

3-15 
347 

2.84 
2.92 

1892 

,503 

2,554 

418 

880 

8.85 

3.21 

2.57 

1893 

,567 

2,727 

456 

969 

8.70 

3-13 

3-30 

2.53 

1894 

,029 

1,823 

446 

956 

6.41 

2-33 

3-19 

2.44 

1895 

,017 

l,8n 

421 

,053 

645 

2.31 

2-93 

2.62 

1896 

,073 

1,861 

502 

,123 

6-59 

2.25 

3-34 

2.74 

1897 

976 

1,693 

"423 

947 

6.08 

2.06 

2.83 

2.32 

1898 

,141 

1,958 

411 

,049 

6.67 

2.24 

2.89 

2.59 

1899 

,155 

2,210 

461 

,249 

645 

2.38 

3-28 

2.97 

1900 

1,396 

2,550 

411 

,501 

7-30 

2.51 

2.86 

3-25 

1901 

1,537 

2,675 

513 

,579 

7-35 

2.50 

347 

3-21 

1902 

1,670 

2,969 

300 

,837 

7.40 

249 

2.03 

347 

1903 

2,061 

3,6o6 

518 

,815 

8.13 

2.75 

341 

3.16 

1904 

2,115 

3,632 

595 

2,018 

8.33 

2.80 

3-69 

3-33 

1905 

1,993 

3,361 

644 

2,178 

7-51 

243 

3-83 

340 

1906 

2,302 

3,929 

2,093 

8.08 

2.58 

3-35 

3.19 

1907 

2,542 

4,534 

708 

2,838 

8.00 

2.71 

4.19 

4-15 

1908 

1,845 

3405 

678 

2,723 

6.67 

2-37 

3-89 

3-82 

1  Figures  for  1891-1908  from  U.  S.  Statistical  Abstract,  1910,  Tables 
180  and  181,  p.  284,  also  Table  168,  p.  265;  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Bul- 
letin go,  Table  xxiv.,  pp.  655-659;  Bulletin  32,  p.  8. 


558 


Appendix 


TABLE  XXX. — ARRIVAL  AND  DEPARTURE  OF  ALIENS  (THOUSANDS), 

I9O8-I92O.1 


All  Aliens 

Excess  of 
immigra- 

Fiscal year 
ended  June  30. 

Admitted 

Departed 

Net 
Increase 

Immi- 
grants 

grants 

tion  over 
emigra- 
tion 

1008  .  , 

925 

715 

2IO 

783 

395 

388 

IOOO 

944 

400 

544 

752 

223 

529 

IQIO.  .  . 

1,198 

380 

818 

1,042 

202 

840 

IQII 

1,030 

518 

512 

879 

295 

584 

loia 

1,017 

615 

402 

838 

333 

505 

IQM.  . 

1,427 

612 

8i5 

1,198 

308 

890 

IQI4. 

It4°3 

634 

709 

1,218 

303 

915 

IQI  S 

474 

384 

50 

327 

204 

123 

IQl6.  .  . 

367 

241 

126 

299 

130 

169 

1017   ., 

362 

146 

216 

295 

66 

229 

IQl8.  .. 

212 

193 

19 

III 

95 

16 

IQIQ.  .. 

237 

216 

21 

141 

124 

17 

IQ2O 

622 

428 

1  04 

41O 

288 

142 

Total... 

10,179 

5,483 

4,695 

8,312 

2,970 

5,342 

1  Annual  Report  of  the  Commissioner-General  of  Immigration,  1920,  Table  XVI  A, 
p.  191. 


Appendix 


559 


TABLE  XXXI. — IMMIGRATION  AND  EMIGRATION  OF  BREADWINNERS,* 
FISCAL  YEARS  1915-1919.' 


Year  Ended 
June  30 

Admitted 

Departed 

Immigrant 
aliens 

Non-immigrant 
aliens 

Emigrant 
aliens 

Non-emigrant 
aliens 

IQ.I5.. 

209,760 
194,060 
190,985 

65,655 
82,818 

72,361 
45,671 
46,758 
81,788 
73,388 

175,609 
112,376 
50,353 
69,483 
101,293 

136,221 

75,244 
53,127 
80,967 
70,432 

I0l6.., 

IQI7... 

IQl8  . 

1919  

TABLE  XXXII— COMPARISON  OF  PERSONS  SEEKING  WORK  AND 
WORKERS  CALLED  FOR  BY  EMPLOYERS  AT  PUBLIC  EMPLOYMENT 
OFFICES  IN  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK:  NUMBER  OF  WORKERS 
REGISTERED  FOR  EACH  ONE  HUNDRED  PLACES  OPEN,  1916-18.' 


MONTH 

1916 

1917 

1918 

Tanuarv  . 

1^6   2 

88  I 

QI    O 

February  

121  .6 

84.  4. 

84.    •* 

March  . 

07    I 

78  8 

68  2 

April  

7-1    C 

81  7 

61  o 

May  

7V4 

83.7 

5V  8 

June  

78.5 

70  4. 

so  s 

July. 

67   I 

7C    Q 

6O  7 

August  

7C    Q 

7-1.0 

c-i   7 

September    . 

74.  ^ 

75  6 

C2   7 

October  

72.1 

80.7 

47.1 

74.  8 

01    "^ 

CQ     -J 

December  

77.2 

85.8 

71  .7 

1  All  aliens,  exclusive  of  "persons  without  occupation,  mostly  women 
and  children." 

2  Annual  Reports  of  the  Commissioner  General  of  Immigration,  1915- 
1919,  Table  VI.:  occupations  of  aliens  admitted  and  departed. 

8  Compiled  from  The  Labor  Market  Bulletin,  published  monthly  by 
the  Bureau  of  Statistics  and  Information  of  the  New  York  State 
Industrial  Commission.  Beginning  with  July,  1018,  the  reports  on 
which  the  above  table  is  based  comprise  the  operations  of  the  Employ- 
ment Bureaus  of  the  New  York  State  Industrial  Commission  and  of 
the  U.  S.  Employment  Service  in  New  York  State.  Previous  to  that 
date,  the  reports  related  only  to  the  Employment  Bureaus  of  the  New 
York  State  Industrial  Commission. 


560 


Appendix 


TABLE  XXXIII. — EXPORTS  OF  PRINCIPAL  BREADSTUFFS,  OTHER  THAN 
WHEAT,  FROM  THE  UNITED  STATES, 


A  rtirl*. 

July  ist  to 

June  30th 

T_  ______ 

1910-1914 

1914-1918 

Barley  bushels  

Thousands 
35,166 

Thousands 
106,895 

Percent 
2O4 

Rye  bushels                               .  . 

4.O54 

52.127 

I  IQI 

Rye  flour,  barrels  

24 

I.I4O 

4.65O 

Corn  meal  barrels  •••-.•    .        

1,668 

1.417 

IQC 

Oatmeal,  pounds  

106,061 

580,607 

447 

Rice  pounds                               .... 

85.107 

574.87Q 

571 

1  Statistical  Abstract  of  United  States t  1918,  pp.  477-478  (computed). 


INDEX 


AGRICULTURAL  LABORERS,  Dis- 
placement: by  machinery,  109; 
Earnings:  compared  with  earn- 
ings in  similar  non-agricultural 
occupations,  in;  Wages:  no 

AGRICULTURAL  POPULATION,  lim- 
its to  further  growth  of,  112; 
movement  to  the  city,  491,  506, 
5<>7 

AGRICULTURE,  103-113,  (See  also: 
Rural  Depopulation);  Centrali- 
zation of  industry:  effect  upon 
farming,  107;  Demand:  for 
labor  in  a.  and  in  industry,  7, 
104;  Differentiation  of  manu- 
facturing: from  a.,  106,  107; 
Irish  Immigrants:  reluctance 
towards  a.,  66;  Machiipry:  108; 
Wages:  low,  no;  of  agricul- 
tural and  other  unskilled  labor- 
ers, in 

ALIENS,  arrival  and  departure  of, 
1908-1920,  558 

AN'THRACITE  COAL,  (See:  Coal 
Mines,  Anthracite) 

ANTHRACITE  COAL  STRIKE  COM- 
MISSION, award  of  the,  456 

APARTMENT  HOUSES,  increase,  282 

ARISTOCRACY  OF  LABOR,  English- 
speaking,  created  by  immigra- 
tion, 9,  161,  163,  164,  394 

ASSIMILATION,  English  language: 
ability  to  speak,  58 ;  Problem  of: 
42,  75;  Recent  immigrants:  77 

B 

BASTABLE,  C.  P.,  218,  219 

BERGER,  VICTOR  L.,  394 

BEVERIDGE,  W.  H.,  114,  121,  123, 
124,  126,  522;  (See  also:  Un- 
employment) 

BING,  ALEXANDER  M.,  500,  501, 
505 


BIRDS  OF  PASSAGE,  74;  by  race, 
75 

BIRTH  RATE,  (See:  Race  Suicide) 

BITUMINOUS  COAL,  (See:  Coal, 
Bituminous) 

BITUMINOUS  COAL  MINES,  (See: 
Coal  Mines,  Bituminous) 

BOARDERS  AND  LODGERS,  Earn- 
ings: of  head  of  family,  253; 
Old  immigration:  per  cent  of 
families  keeping  b.  a.  1.  among 
the  races  of  the,  253;  Rent:  and 
b.  a.  1.,  254;  Statistics:  of  the 
Immigration  Commission  unre- 
liable, 251,  252 

BOSTON,  25, 65, 241, 242, 356, 363; 
Home  ownership:  1845-1900, 
277;  Housing:  number  of  fami- 
lies per  house,  1853-1900,  242; 
Tenancy:  1790,  1845,  1890,  and 
1900,  276;  Tenement  houses: 
1855  and  1900,  241;  unsanitary 
in  the  '70*8,  241,  242 

BREADWINNERS,  English:  number, 
1890  and  1900,  1 66;  in  selected 
occupations,  1 890-1 900,  1 68 ; 
German:  number,  1890  and 
1900,  1 66;  in  selected  occupa- 
tions, 170;  Increase  or  decrease: 
by  sex,  nativity,  and  occupa- 
tion, 1890-1900,  141;  Irish: 
number,  1890  and  1900,  166; 
in  selected  occupations,  169; 
Welsh:  number,  1890  and  1900, 
1 66;  in  selected  occupations, 
1 68;  (See  also:  Foreign-born; 
Immigration) 

BRITISH  COLONIES,  British  immi- 
gration to,  encouraged  by  colo- 
nial governments,  210 

BRITISH  EMIGRATION,  decline  of, 
effect  of  home  conditions,  173 

BRITISH  IMMIGRATION,  encouraged 
by  colonial  governments,  210 

BUDGETS,  (See:  Family  Budgets) 

BURNETT,  JOHN  L.,  43 


562 


Index 


CANADA,  (See:  Emigration,  Amer- 
ican farmers) 

CAPITAL,  emigration  of,  491,  492, 
510;  immigration  of,  522-523 

CARLTON,  FRANK  TRACY,  61,  307, 
308,  318,  330,  349,  35i 

CASTE  PREJUDICE,  against  the 
immigrant,  outgrowth  of  occu- 
pational stratification,  424 

CHAPIN,  ROBERT  COIT,  240,  258, 
260,  261 

CHILD  LABOR,  107,  318-324;  Cot- 
ton mills:  children  under  14  in 
Northern  and  Southern,  321; 
children  under  14  in  principal 
States,  321;  Decrease:  of,  con- 
temporaneous with  the  increase 
of  immigration,  318;  in  States 
with  a  large  immigrant  popula- 
tion, 26;  Defenders:  of,  in  the 
South,  321;  Foreign-born:  per 
cent  of,  and  per  cent  of  children 
under  16  employed  in  factories 
in  leading  States,  319;  Increase, 
during  the  World  War,  508,  509 ; 
Parent  nativity:  of  children,  10 
to  15  years,  in  manufactures,  by 
geographical  divisions,  320; 
Shoe  factories:  c.  1.  in,  of  rural 
Missouri,  322;  South:  more 
frequent  in  the,  than  in  States 
with  large  immigrant  popula- 
tion, 319;  Substitute  for  immi- 
gration, 26,  321,  490,  527 

CIVIL  WAR,  cost  of  living,  307; 
labor  organizations,  330;  wages, 
307-308 

CLAGHORN,  KATE  H.,  65,  66,  357 

CLOTHING  INDUSTRY,  265-267 ; 
(See  also:  Family  Budgets; 
Farmhouse  Labor;  Garment 
Workers);  Growth:  of,  since 
1890,  369;  Hours  of  labor:  in 
middle  of  nineteenth  century, 
363;  Strikes:  compared  with 
average  for  all  industries,  1887- 
!905,  373J  Wages,  real:  of 
women  in  the  past  lower  than 
to-day,  364,  365 

CLOTHING  WORKERS,  (See:  Gar- 
ment Workers) 

COAL,  Demand:  fluctuations  in 
the,  for,  432,  433,  434;  Pro- 
duction: per  capita,  105;  by 


months,  433;  and  population, 
419;  in  the  U.  S.,  1880-1910, 
416-417 

COAL,  BITUMINOUS,  machine 
mined,  per  cent  of,  and  per- 
centage of  miners  from  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europe,  by  States, 

429,  555 

COAL  MINERS,  414-457;  Unem- 
ployed: and  per  cent  foreign 
white,  by  States,  538;  Westward 
movement:  caused  by  the  open- 
ing of  new  mining  fields,  418 

COAL  MINERS,  BITUMINOUS,  Wage 
scale:  in  Pennsylvania,  1895- 

1908,  441 ;   Wages:  by  race  and 
locality,  442 

COAL  MINES,  (See  also:  Coal;  Coal 
Miners ;  Fatal  Accidents ;  Strikes ; 
Work  Accidents) ;  Competition: 
of  unorganized  native  American 
mine  workers,  447;  Fatal  acci- 
dents: in  the  U.  S.  and  foreign 
countries,  469;  Unemployment: 
part-time  employment  in  lieu 

of,  434 

COAL  MINES,  ANTHRACITE,  (See 
also:  Anthracite  Coal  Strike 
Commission;  Strikes);  Fatal 
accident  rate:  1870-1909,  479, 
556;  Miners'  unions:  short 
lived  prior  to  the  New  Immigra- 
tion, 455;  Pro duction:  of,  1870- 

1909,  4371   Wage-earners:  num- 
ber in,  1870-1909,  437 

COAL  MINES,  BITUMINOUS,  Days 
worked:  average  number  of, 
and  variation  of  the  number  of 
immigrant  miners  and  laborers 
in  Pennsylvania,  140,  141; 
Employees:  number,  1880-1907, 
420;  Fatal  accident  rate:  by 
nativity  and  causes,  474;  by 
nativity  and  length  of  experi- 
ence, 477;  compared  with  rail- 
roads, 485,  557;  variation  of  the 
percentage  of  miners  of  Slavic 
and  Italian  parentage,  472,  527; 
Labor  organizations,  445;  Un- 
employment: ratio  of,  and  per- 
centage of  foreign-born  miners, 
134";  Wages,  union  scale  of, 
1898-1908,  440 

COLLECTIVE  BARGAINING,  (See : 
Labor  Organizations,  World 
War) 


Index 


563 


COMMISSARY  STORE,  (See:  Com- 
pany Store) 

COMMONS,  JOHN  R.,  62,  114,  289, 
291,  298,  302,  307,  362,  454,  518 

COMPANY  HOUSES,  247,  248 

COMPANY  STORE,  272;  Movement 
against:  1849-1897,444;  in  the 
South,  443 

COMPETITION,  IMMIGRANT,  new 
immigrants  not  working  for  less 
pay  than  natives  or  older  im- 
migrants, 401 

CONGESTION,  (See  also:  Housing 
Conditions;  Tenement  Houses); 
Boston:  number  of  families  per 
house,  1853-1900,  242;  Dublin: 
c.  in,  520;  Effect:  upon  cost  of 
living  and  wages,  240;  Failure 
of  the  community:  to  provide 
safeguards  against,  239;  In- 
dustrial causes,  235;  Ireland: 
c.  in,  244;  New  York  City:  229- 
241;  Old  Immigration:  65; 
Race:  not  a  factor,  237;  Rear 
tenements,  233 

CONTRACT  LABORERS,  importa- 
tion of,  infrequent,  99,  394,  524; 
during  the  World  War,  498-499, 

530 

COST  OF  LIVING,  240,  521,  (See 
also:  Wages  and  the  Cost  of 
Living) 

COTTON  MILLS,  375-383,  (See  also: 
Child  Labor);  Earnings:  of 
operatives,  by  sex  and  age,  by 
principal  States,  387;  Hours  of 
labor,  31 5;  Strikes:  much  above 
the  average  in  duration,  379; 
Unemployed:  and  foreign-born, 
136,  540 

CRAFT  UNIONS,  (See:  Labor  Or- 
ganizations) 

CRIME,  353,  358-361;  Immigrants: 
alleged  criminal  proclivities  of 
the,  358 ;  no  more  criminal  than 
native  Americans,  359 ;  Increase 
of  immigration:  coincident  with 
decrease  of  c.,  360 


DANES,  79,  197,  (See  also:  Scan- 
dinavians) 

DANGEROUS  WORKING  CONDI- 
TIONS, statistics  of  strikes 
against,  486 


DAYS  WORKED,  Bituminous  coal 
mines:  d.  w.  collated  with 
variation  of  number  of  immi- 
grant miners  and  laborers  in 
Pennsylvania,  140,  141;  Organ- 
ized trades:  in  the  State  of  New 
York,  and  immigration,  1897- 
1909,  144 

DEMAND  FOR  LABOR,  (See  also: 
Agriculture;  Labor  Market); 
A  griculture:  1 03-1 1 3 ;  Charac- 
ter and  volume  of  immigration: 
determined  by,  102;  Immigra- 
tion and  emigration:  regulated 
by,  3 ;  Population  of  the  United 
States :  not  increasing  as  fast  as, 
84 

DENMARK,  16,  179,  202,  203-205, 
(See  also:  Northern  and  Western 
Europe) ;  Decline  of  emigration: 
from,  due  to  improvement  in 
condition  of  people,  205;  Eco- 
nomic conditions:  of  the  peas- 
ants greatly  improved  since  the 
'8o's,  203;  Emigration:  from, 
to  the  United  States,  1820-1910, 
203;  Immigration:  to,  204; 
Progress  of  manufacturing;  204 

DESMOND,  H.  J.,  73,  77 

DISPLACEMENT,  denned  by  the 
Oxford  Dictionary,  149 

DISPLACEMENT,  RACIAL,  415 

E 

EARNINGS,  (See:  Wages) 

EASTMAN,  CRYSTAL,  460,  461,  467, 
468,  481,  482,  484 

EMIGRATION,  American  farmers: 
emigrating  to  Canada,  112; 
Immigration :  compared  with, 
90,  557,  558;  Industrial  crisis, 
1907-8,  net  e.  during,  88; 
Monthly  average:  1907-1909, 
92;  World  War,  net  e.  during, 
498 

EMPLOYMENT,  Fluctuations  of,i2i, 

123,  137,  53i 

ENGELS,  FRIEDRICH,  475-476 

ENGLAND,  (See:  United  Kingdom) 

ENGLISH  AND  WELSH,   166,   167, 

168,   170,   171,   172,  262,  263, 

264,  267,   268,  290,  326,   355, 

356,  357,  395,  40i,  4U,  415, 

425,  436,  437,  442,  447,  449, 

545,  546 


564 


Index 


ENGLISH  LANGUAGE,  per  cent 
foreign-born  able  to  speak  the, 
by  years  in  the  U.  S.,  58 

F 
FAIRCHILD,  HENRY    PRATT,    iv; 

487;  515-517;  519-529 
FALKNER,  ROLAND  P.,  68,  69 
FAMILY  BUDGETS,  Clothing:  ex- 
penditure for,  in  families  of  un- 
skilled laborers,  by  income  and 
nativity,  267;  increases  with 
earnings,  266;  prices  paid  for, 
by  recent  immigrants  the  same 
as  by  native  Americans,  265; 
race  variations  insignificant, 
266;  Deficit:  annual,  per  work- 
ing family,  by  occupations, 
1885,297,551;  Food:  expendi- 
tures for,  by  nativity  and  in- 
come, 258,  260,  262;  in  New 
York  City,  260;  Slav  laborers, 
standards  of,  259;  Laborers: 
unskilled,  classified  by  nativity 
and  source  of  income,  New 
Jersey,  1885,  550;  Massachu- 
setts: 1800,  1830,  and  1860,  549; 
Rent:  paid  by  immigrants  as 
high  as,  or  higher  than,  that 
paid  by  native  wage-earners, 
250;  by  nativity,  254,  255; 
per  person,  in  families  without 
boarders,  the  same  for  native, 
and  foreign-born,  254,  255; 
South  Italians:  food  expendi- 
tures of,  compared  with  Ameri- 
can families,  258;  Surplus:  of 
income  over  expenditure,  by 
country  of  birth  of  families, 
368;  Wage-earners:  classified 
by  occupations,  New  Jersey, 
1885,  550 

FARMHOUSE   LABOR,  Competition: 
of,  in  the  clothing  industry,  in 
'40*5  and  '50*5,  365;    Daughters 
of  American  farmers:    working 
for  less  than  cost  of  living,  365 
FARMING,  (See:   Agriculture) 
FARM  LABORERS,    (See:    Agricul- 
tural laborers) 

FATAL  ACCIDENT  RATE,  (See  also: 
Fatal  Accidents);  Anthracite 
coal  mines:  1870-1909,  528; 
decrease  simultaneous  with  in- 
crease of  employment  of  Slavs 


and  Italians,  478;  Bituminous 
coal  mines:  485;  collated  with 
variation  of  the  per  cent  of 
miners  of  Italian  and  Slavic 
parentage,  472,  555;  compared 
with  railroads,  557;  increase 
due  to  exhaustion  of  mines,  480; 
Coal  mines:  variation  by  States, 
471;  by  causes  and  nativity, 
474;  by  length  of  experience 
and  nativity,  477;  Foreign 
countries:  compared  with  U.  S., 
469 

FATAL  ACCIDENTS,  (See  also:  Fatal 
Accident  Rate;  Work  Acci- 
dents); Coal  mines:  negligence 
of  the  miners,  480;  Railroads: 
485;  Steel  mills:  speeding  the 
cause  of,  481 

FITCH,  JOHN  A.,  164, 395, 399~4oi, 
405,  411-413,  520,  526,  (See 
also:  Pittsburgh  Survey) 

FOERSTER,  ROBERT  F.,  515-520, 

525-527 

FOOD,  256-265,  (See  also:  Family 
Budgets) ;  Food:  Southern  iron 
district:  expenses  of  typical 
households  for,  549;  Immigra- 
tion Commission's  data:  256, 
257;  Slavs:  standards  of  the, 
compared  with  the  U.  S.  Navy 
ration,  257 

FOREIGN-BORN,  Breadwinners:  by 
grade  of  occupation  and  na- 
tionality, 172;  immigration  and 
emigration  of,  1915-1919,  559; 
increase  or  decrease  of,  by  occu- 
pation and  nationality,  1890- 
1900,  Appendix,  Table  XI;  In- 
crease: compared  with  immigra- 
tion, 88;  from  Scandinavian 
countries,  compared  with  immi- 
grants from  Southern  and  East- 
ern Europe,  1880-1910,  199 

FRIDAY,  DAVID,  497,  503,  504,  511 


GARMENT  WORKERS,  362-374,  (See 
also:  Clothing  Industry) ;  Jews: 
in  the  cities  underbid  by  Amer- 
ican country  workers,  372;  La- 
bor organizations:  affiliations  of 
Jews  and  Italians  with,  in  New 
York  City  above  the  average 
for  '  the  country,  326;  more 


Index 


565 


effective  than  among  other  in- 
dustrial workers,  373 

GERMAN  IMMIGRANTS,  2,  3,  8,  12, 
15,  52-54, 65,  66,  73,  76-78, 149, 
162,  170-172,  180-196,  194, 
228-233,  252,  253, 263, 275, 328, 
357, 368, 369, 370, 374, 385, 395, 
401,  414,  436,  442;  Colonies:  in 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  77 ;  Congestion:  in  the 
settlements  in  old  New  York 
City,  65;  Occupations:  1890- 
1900,  170;  Pennsylvania:  in  the 
colony  of,  76;  Tenement  houses: 
unsanitary,  in  New  York  City 
colonies  of,  in  the  '60 's,  232 

GERMANY,  (See  also:  German 
Immigrants;  Northern  and 
Western  Europe);  i,  14,  43,  52, 
178-180, 180-196,  255,  262,  267, 
268,  355,  356,  386,  520,  545;  Ad- 
vance: in  the  wages  of  farm 
labor,  189,  190;  Agricultural 
progress:  189,  190;  in  1895- 
1910,  190;  Coal:  production  of, 
per  cent  increase  of,  1890-1909, 
183;  Coal  miners:  increase  of 
annual  earnings,  1890-1910, 
1 86;  Emigration:  from,  annual 
average,  1875-1910,  192;  to 
countries  outside  of  the  U.  S., 
1890-1904,  195;  net  e.  from, 
1 80 ;  of  unskilled  laborers  to  the 
U.  S.,  increasing  with  the  in- 
creased immigration  to  the  U. 
S.,  from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe,  192,  193;  Foreign-born: 
by  country  of  birth,  1880-1900, 
545 ;  engaged  in  gainful  occupa- 
tions, 1900,  545;  population  of, 
1 80;  Immigration:  to,  exceeds 
emigration  from,  180;  to  G.  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe, 

181,  520;  Industrial  expansion: 

182,  520;    Iron:  production  of, 
1880-1910,    183;    Labor:    con- 
dition of,  improved,  185;    de- 
mand for,  increased,  185;    Mi- 
gration:  of  workers  from  Rus- 
sian Poland  to  G.,  181;    Rail- 
road mileage:    growth  of,  and 
freight  traffic,  1890-1900,  184; 
Trade-unions:     189;     member- 
ship of,  1890-1910,  187 

GREAT  BRITAIN,  i,  14, 17,  52, 179, 
385,  (See  also:  British  Immi- 


gration; English  and  Welsh; 
Northern  and  Western  Europe; 
United  Kingdom) ;  Immigra- 
tion: from,  rise  in  1897-1907, 
213;  Living  conditions:  im- 
provement of,  214;  Real  wages: 
1850-1900,  215  / 

H 

HALL,  PRESCOTT  F.,  41,  42 

HAYNES,  JOHN  RANDOLPH,  462, 
464,  469,  480,  481 

HEBREWS,  (See:  Jews) 

HOFFMAN,  P.  L.,  465,  466,  471, 
474,  476,  477 

HOLMES,  JOSEPH  A.,  467,  468 

HOME  OWNERSHIP,  274-283,  (See 
also:  Apartment  Houses);  Ages: 
of  home  owners,  279-281;  Bos- 
ton: 1845-1900,  277;  Cities: 
with  population  of  50,000  and 
over,  percentage  of  native  white 
in,  278;  Decreasing:  with  the 
growth  of  urban  population, 
282;  with  the  increase  of  land 
values,  278;  Irregularity  of  em- 
ployment: a  bar  to,  274;  New 
immigrants:  not  long  enough  in 
the  U.  S.  to  have  acquired 
homes,  282;  Labor  disputes: 
handicap  in,  174;  Laboring 
classes;  not  accessible  to,  283; 
Old  immigration:  277;  Real 
estate:  value  of,  278-279;  Ten- 
ancy: in  Boston,  1790,  1845, 
1890,  and  1900,  276;  Thrift: 
and  h.  o.,  276 

HOURS  OF  LABOR,  3ii~3i7,  (See 
also:  Clothing  Industry);  Agri- 
culture: no;  American  mill 
hands:  native,  in  the  ante- 
immigration  period,  311,  312; 
Cotton  mills:  h.  o.  1.  reduced  in, 
315;  Massachusetts:  1872-1903, 
313;  New  immigration:  314; 
New  York  City:  reduction  of, 
compared  with  remainder  of 
the  State,  316,  317;  Reduction: 
contemporaneous  with  immi- 
gration, 27;  Sewing  women:  in 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  363;  Steel  industry: 
shorter  hours  for  foreigners 
than  for  English-speaking  skilled 
and  semi-skilled  .employees,  314 


S66 


Index 


HOUSING  CONDITIONS,  241-256, 
(See  also:  Congestion;  Tene- 
ment Houses);  Cause:  of  bad 
h.  c.  economic,  not  racial,  247; 
Germans:  unsanitary  h.  c.  of, 
in  the  past,  230-232;  Immigra- 
tion Commission:  tendency  to 
shift  the  blame  to  the  tenant, 
249;  Improvements:  by  Italians 
and  Jews,  66;  Irish:  unsanitary 
h.  c.  of,  in  the  past,  230-232; 
Italian  district:  improved  h.  c. 
in  the,  66,  234;  Jewish  districts: 
improved  h.  c.  in  the,  66,  234; 
Landlords:  responsibility  of, 
247;  Native  white:  New  Eng- 
land working  girls  in  the  '40*8, 
241;  sewing  women,  squalid 
h.  c.  in  the  past,  231;  unskilled 
laborers  in  Southern  mill  towns, 
246;  Old  immigration:  cellar 
population  in  New  York  City, 
230;  Massachusetts  towns,  h.  c. 
in,  243 ;  rear  tenements  in  New 
York  City,  233;  shanty  dwell- 
ers in  Massachusetts  in  the 
'70*5,  244;  unsanitary  tene- 
ments in  Boston,  241,  242 

HOWARD,  EARL  DEAN,  185,  186, 
189,  190 

HUNGARIANS,  (See:  Magyars, 
Slavs) 

HUNGARY,  98,  100 

HUNTER,  ROBERT,  40,  45 


ILLINOIS,  11,  134,  135,  300,  301, 
319,  334.  428-431,  433,  447,  44®, 
453,  471,  472,  473,  484,  534, 

T  535,  538,  539,  540,  554,  557 

ILLITERACY,  immigration  from 
Bulgaria,  Greece,  Russia,  and 
Servia  compared  with  popula- 
tion of  same  countries,  71 ; 
Italian:  statistics  of,  80;  Sta- 
tistics: 70,  80 

IMMIGRANT  COLONIES,  Irish  and 
German  in  middle  of  nineteenth 
century,  77 

IMMIGRANTS,  Connections:  in  the 
U.  S.,  94;  Farmers:  number  of, 
negligible  at  all  periods,  67; 
Imported:  myth  of,  3,  99; 
Occupations:  per  cent  distribu- 
tion by,  1861-1910,  67;  Old: 


majority  unskilled,  67;  Skilled: 
proportion  of,  same  for  last  half- 
century,  67 

IMMIGRATION,  Annual  average:  by 
occupations,  1 86 1-1910,  503 ; 
Assisted:  96;  Breadwinners, 
immigration  and  emigration  of, 
559,  net  i.  of,  1915-1919,  498; 
Business  conditions:  and,  1880- 
1910,  87;  Compared:  with  emi- 
gration, 88,  546 ;  Decline  of, 
493,  498;  Monthly  average: 
compared  with  immigration, 
1907-1909,  92;  Objections:  to, 
40;  Old:  compared  with  New, 
6 1  -8 1 ;  distribution,  before 
1840,  63;  indentured  servants, 
immigrants  a  century  ago 
mostly,  62;  Opposition:  to,  by 
organized  labor  antedates  new, 
78;  to  quantity  not  quality,  79; 
Quality  of:  European  opinion, 
.72;  Immigration  Commission, 
conclusion  of,  72;  intellectu- 
ally average  immigrant  above 
average  of  countrymen  at  home, 
70;  standard  not  lowered,  69; 
Restriction  of,  probable  effects 
of,  487-492;  511;  Tractability: 
of  old  and  new,  346;  Volume: 
how  regulated,  93 

IMMIGRATION  COMMISSION,  Con- 
clusions: of  the,  49,  72 ;  contra- 
'  dieted  by  its  statistics,  325 

INDUCED  IMMIGRATION,  uncon- 
firmed tales  of,  391 

INDUSTRIAL  ACTIVITY,  Immigra- 
tion: and,  86;  Population:  and, 
for  the  past  twenty  years,  82 

INDUSTRIAL  RELATIONS,  Commis- 
sion on,  493,  494,  500 

IRELAND,  2,  14,  17,  43,  65,  178, 
179,  210,  215-221,  244,  245, 
55.0,  551,  (See  also:  Congestion; 
Irish;  Northern  and  _  Western 
Europe;  United  Kingdom); 
Emigration:  from,  1851-1908, 
216;  decreasing  since  1 860,  2 1 6 ; 
by  destination,  1876-1908,  217; 
Farm  laborers:  rise  in  wages  of, 
219;  Housing:  in  rural  areas, 
186^-1901,  219;  Land  reform: 
effects  of,  217,  218;  Recent 
progress:  217-219 

IRISH,  12-14,  17,  25,  52,  54,  57, 
64-67,  69,  73,  77,  149,  !6i,  166, 


Index 


567 


169-172,  178,  179,  2IO,  212, 
229-232,  244,  247,  252,  253,  255, 
260-263,  267,  275,  290,  295,  328, 

355,  356,  357,  364,  365,  374,  385, 
386,  394,  395,  401,  414,  415,  425, 
436,  437,  442,  447,  449,  545,  546, 
(See  also:  Ireland) ;  Congestion: 
in  the  settlements  of  New  York 
City  in  the  past,  65;  Farm 
work:  reluctance  of  the  early 
immigrants  toward,  66;  Immi- 
grant colonies:  in  the  middle  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  77;  Oc- 
cupations: in  the  U.  S.,  1890- 
1900,  169;  Pauperism:  in  Bos- 
ton, 1837-1845,  356;  Standard 
of  living:  of  early  immigrants, 
64;  Sweatshops:  in  the  'so's, 
364;  Tenement  houses:  unsani- 
tary, in  the  I.  colonies  of  New 
York  City  in  the  '6o's,  232 
IRON  AND  STEEL  INDUSTRY,  (See 
also:  Iron  and  Steel  Workers); 
Expansion:  of,  158-160;  Tech- 
nical revolution:  in  the,  399 

IRON    AND    STEEL    WORKERS,    394- 

413,  (See  also:  Aristocracy  of 
Labor;  Rolling  Mills;  Un- 
skilled Laborers);  Amalga- 
mated Association:  of,  common 
laborers  barred,  411;  decline 
due  to  substitution  of  ma- 
chinery for  skill,  412;  Birds  of 
passage:  by  race,  75;  Crowding 
out:  of  English-speaking  work- 
men by  immigrants,  none,  395; 
Earnings:  in  the  Pittsburgh  and 
Southern  districts.  408;  Eight- 
hour  day:  demand  of  the  em- 
ployers, in  th»  '8o's  resisted,  by 
the  Amalgamated  Association, 
410,  411;  Highly  paid  men:  a 
small  fraction  of  the  force  in  the 
past,  395;  Hours  of  labor: 
shorter  for  unskilled  foreign- 
ers than  for  English-speaking 
skilled  and  semi-skilled,  314; 
Machinery:  skill  displaced  by, 
399;  Months  of  employment: 
native  and  foreign-born  male, 
by  per  cent  distribution,  127; 
Race:  1880,  1890,  and  1900, 
159;  1890-1900,  in  the  prin- 
cipal cities  of  the  Middle  West, 
1 60;  and  skill,  402;  Racial 
stratification:  402,  403;  Skilled: 


earnings  in  Eastern  and  South- 
ern mills,  407;  proportion  of, 
162;  Sunday  work:  general 
rule  before  period  of  New  Im- 
migration, 409;  Twelve-hour 
day:  insisted  on  by  piece  work- 
ers in  the  '8o's,  410,  411;  Un- 
skilled: proportion  of,  162; 
Wages:  403;  in  1884,  396;  in 
1880-1908,  398,  553;  by  occu- 
pations, 1880-1908,  397;  of 
skilled  men  higher  in  Pittsburgh 
with,  than  in  the  South  with- 
out, immigrant  competition, 
405 ;  of  skilled  men  in  the  Pitts- 
burgh mills  reduced  since  1892, 
403,  404;  vary  inversely  with 
the  ratio  of  recent  immigrants, 
408 

IRREGULARITY  OF  EMPLOYMENT, 
migratory  worker  the  product 
of,  435 

ITALIANS,  3,  7,  15,  16,  20,  22,  32, 
37,  43,  47,  65,  72,  79,  80,  85, 
91,  99,  120,  162,  170-172,  193, 
200,  201,  209,  234, 237,  238, 240, 
253,  255,  258-263,  267-269,  290, 
326,  328,  345,  349,  351,  355, 
356-359,  368-371,  374, 385,  386, 
388,  391,  394, 428,  437,  442,  443, 
449,  450,  453,  458,  484,  545, 
546,  (See  also:  South  Italians) ; 
Housing  conditions:  improved 
by,  66;  improved  in  the  I. 
district,  234;  Illiteracy:  statis- 
tics, 80;  Labor  organizations: 
affiliation  of  clothing  workers 
with,  above  the  average  for  the 
country,  326 

ITALY,  32, 69, 72, 93, 181, 349,  350, 
358,  359,  (See  also:  Italians); 
Labor  organizations:  349;  agri- 
cultural, 350;  Strikes:  of  agri- 
cultural laborers,  350 


JENKS  AND  LAUCK,  43,  44,  65,  68, 
84,  85,  126,  163,  164,  173,  245, 
247, 248,  250,  251, 271, 272,  273, 
275,  280,  285,  287,  288,  290, 302, 
303,  346,  35i,  36o,  371,  458,  460 

JENKS,  JEREMIAH  W.,  (See:  Jenks 
and  Lauck) 

JEWS,  3,  20,  25,  32,  65,  66,  71,  72, 
228,  234,  238,  240,  253,  280, 


568 


Index 


326, 328, 351, 356, 362, 363, 368, 

369,  370,  371,  372,  374,  (See 
also:  Russians);  Housing  con- 
ditions: improved,  in  the  J. 
districts,  66,  234;  Labor  organi- 
zations: affiliation  of  J.  clothing 
workers  with,  in  New  York 
City  above  the  average  for  the 
country,  326;  Underbidding:  of 
J.  by  American  country  work- 
ers, 372 


LABOR,  condition  of,  has  not  de- 
teriorated in  the  U.  S.,  23 

LABOR  AGENTS,  before  the  immi- 
gration era,  119 

LABOR  ARISTOCRACY,  (See:  Aris- 
tocracy of  Labor) 

LABOR  COMPETITION,  Immigrants: 
do  not  undercut  union  wages, 
378;  Southern  white:  keeping 
down  the  wages  of  immigrants 
in  the  North,  381 

LABOR  MARKET,  immigration  and 
the,  82-102,  498-500;  mobility 
of  labor,  499-5°° 

LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS,  325-352, 
(See  also:  Coal  Mines;  Cotton 
Mills;  Garment  Workers;  Iron 
and  Steel  W9rkers;  Woolen 
Mills);  Bituminous  coal  mines: 
445 ;  Coal  miners:  non-English- 
speaking,  affiliated  with,  352, 
353 ;  union  of,  recognized  by  the 
Steel  Trust,  453 ;  Date  of  organi- 
zation: in  principal  industrial 
States,  334;  Ephemeral:  previous 
to  1880,  330;  Garment  workers: 
Jewish  and  Italian,  union  affilia- 
tions above  the  average  for  the 
country,  326;  Growth:  since 
1890,333;  Immigrants:  discrim- 
ination against,  347;  Immigra- 
tion: effects  of,  on  1.  o.,  376,  377; 
Machinery:  effect  upon  craft 
unions,  351;  Membership:  na- 
tivity, 552;  and  immigration, 
New  York  State,  552;  in  the 
State  of  New  York,  and  im- 
migration to  the  State  of 
New  York,  1897-1910,  336; 
foreign-born  predominating  in 
the  '8o's,  330,  331;  proportion 
of  industrial  wage-earners  or- 


ganized, 340,  553;  race  not  a 
factor,  327;  rising  and  falling 
with  rise  and  fall  of  immigra- 
tion, 30;  Native  Americans: 
aloofness  from,  339;  New  York 
City:  stronger  than  in  the  re- 
mainder of  the  State,  341,  343; 
New  York  State,  stronger  than 
in  Kansas,  337,  339;  Progress: 
greater  progress  coincident  with 
the  great  tide  of  immigration, 
3331  Proportion:  organized,  na- 
tives and  immigrants,  327,  328; 
Recent  immigrants:  home  train- 
ing in  organization,  32,  349; 
organizing  along  industrial  lines, 
413;  as  strongly  organized  as 
natives  and  older  immigrants, 
327;  Skilled:  interests  of,  con- 
flict with  those  of  the  unskilled, 
348;  Unskilled:  not  eligible  to 
membership  in  craft  unions, 
346;  organization  among  the, 

32,  349 

LABOR  PROBLEM,  immigration  not 
the  cause  of,  34 

LABOR  UNIONS,  (See:  Labor  Or- 
ganizations) 

LABORERS,  (See:  Unskilled  Lab- 
orers) 

LAUCK,  W.  JETT,  49, 265, 384, 388, 
494,  495,  496,  501,  511,  (See 
also:  Jenks  and  Lauck) 

LAWRENCE,  MASSACHUSETTS,  33, 
348, 384-393,  (See  also:  Strikes; 
Wages;  Woolen  and  Worsted 
Mills;  Worsted  Mills);  strike  of 
1912,  348;  and  public  opinion, 

384 
LEISERSON,    WILLIAM    M.,    290, 

44°,  454 
LITHUANIANS,  32,  55,  56,  57,  75, 

228,  253,  328,  351,  368,  370, 
T  442,  456 

LITMAN,  SIMON,  502,  503 
LIVING  EXPENSES,   (See:  Family 

Budgets) 
LODGERS,     (See:     Boarders    and 

Lodgers) 

M 

MACHINE  MINING,  (See  also:  Min- 
ing Machine) ;  Bituminous  coal: 
per  cent  of,  machine  mined,  and 
per  cent  ratio  of  miners  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe, 


Index  569 


by  States,  553;  Economies:  of, 
426,  427 

MACHINERY,  (See  also:  Agricul- 
ture; Agricultural  Laborers; 
Iron  and  Steel  Workers);  Ef- 
fects: in  general,  231,  525,  526; 
upon  craft  unions,  351;  Immi- 
gration: New,  and,  289;  sub- 
stitute for,  492 ;  Rate  of  wages: 
introduction  determined  by,  290 

MAGYARS,  162,  257,  442,  443,  449, 
450,  458  (See  also:  Hungary) 

MANUFACTURES,  wage  -  earners, 
1879-1909,  151 

MARX,  KARL,  124,  125,  291 

MASSACHUSETTS,  27,  138,  139, 
174-176, 224, 225, 243, 244, 295, 
300, 301, 311, 313, 314, 319, 321, 
333,  334,  343,  344,  375,  378-380, 
382,  383,  392,  523,  524,  534,  535, 
540,  541,  551;  Hours  of  labor: 
1872-1903,  313;  Immigrant 
breadwinners:  destined  for, 
1897-1908,  139;  Racial  stratifi- 
cation: 1900-1905,  173;  Strikes: 
1830-1905,  344;  Textile  mills: 
percentage  of  immigrants  from 
Southern  and  Eastern  Europe 
employed  in,  1880-1900,  370; 
Unemployment:  of  factory  work- 
ers, and  immigration,  139; 
Wages  and  cost  of  living:  1800, 
1830,  and  i860,  295,  296,  521; 
in  the  '7o's,  295;  Woolen  mills: 
comparative  statistics  of  strikes 
in,  392 

MAYO-SMITH,  RICHMOND,  46,  69, 
89,  292 

MIGRATORY  WORKERS,  created  by 
irregularity  of  employment,  435 

MINERS,  (See  also:  Fatal  Acci- 
dents: Labor  Organizations; 
Unemployment);  Native  white: 
decrease  of  the  number  of,  by 
States,  1890-1900,  158;  Racial 
displacement:  of  natives  by 
immigrants,  none,  156,  157 

MINING  MACHINE,  Pick  miner: 
displaced  by  the,  425 ;  Substitute 
for  immigration:  425;  Unskilled 
immigrants:  employment  of,  the 
effect  not  the  cause  of  the  intro- 
duction of  the  m.  m.,  425 

MITCHELL,  JOHN,  41,  46 

MITCHELL,  WESLEY  C.,  308,  507 

MONEY  SENT  ABROAD,  by  immi- 


grants, 269;  mercantilist  objec- 
tion to,  271 

N 

NATIONALITIES,  principal,  of  male 
breadwinners  classified  by  occu- 
pation groups,  1900,  171 

NATIVE-BORN,  decrease  of,  by 
occupations,  1890-1900,  152 

NATIVE  BREADWINNERS,  decrease 
ofi  by  occupations  in  Mass., 
1900-1905,  175 

NATIVE  WHITE,  of  native  parent- 
age, males,  decrease  in  selected 
occupations,  compared  with  loss 
by  death,  1890-1900,  153 

NEARING,  SCOTT,  293,  302,  519 

NEGROES,  migration  of,  during  the 
World  War,  507,  508 

NEW  IMMIGRATION,  compared  with 
the  Old,  61-81 

NEW  YORK  CITY,  7,  20,  25,  28,  32, 
63,  66,  67,  119,  120,  121,  149, 
229-241,  260,  316,  317,  326,  335, 

337,  340-343,  354-357,  3^3,  365, 
367,  369,  (See  also:  Family 
Budgets;  Congestion);  Cellar 
population:  of  the  '40*3,  230; 
Congestion:  in  the  Irish  and 
German  settlements  of  the 
past,  65 ;  Hours  of  labor:  reduc- 
tion of,  compared  with  the 
remainder  of  the  State,  316,317; 
Labor  organizations:  affiliation 
of  Jewish  and  Italian  clothing 
workers  with,  above  the  average 
for  the  country,  326;  member- 
ship of,  compared  with  New 
York  State,  341,  343;  Pauper- 
ism: lodgers  at  the  municipal 
lodging  nouses,  by  nativity, 
1908,  355;  Paupers:  nativity, 
1854-1860,  and  1885-1895,  356; 
by  nativity  and  cause,  356,  357 
NEW  YORK  STATE,  27,  31,  140, 
143, 144, 146, 300, 301, 315-317, 
319, 32i,  335-343, 36o,  383,  534, 
535,  540,  554,  555;  Hours  of 
labor:  compared  with  New  York 
City,  317;  Membership  of  labor 
organizations:  compared  with 
Kansas,  339;  compared  with 
New  York  City,  342,  343;  per- 
centage of  wage-earners  organ- 
ized, 1900-1909,  553;  rising  and 


570 


Index 


falling  with  immigration,  335, 

552 

NEWSHOLME,  ARTHUR,  226,  528 

NORTHERN  AND  WESTERN  EU- 
ROPE, Emigration:  from,  177- 
220;  causes  of  decrease,  13; 
cannot  keep  pace  with  demand 
for  labor  in  the  U.  S.,  177;  Im- 
migration:  to  the  United  States 
could  not  replace  immigration 
from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe,  220 

NORWAY,  179,  202-203,  (See  also: 
Northern  and  Western  Europe) ; 
Immigration:  from,  to  the  U.  S., 
202;  greatest  in  1901-1910,  202; 
Recent  industrial  development: 
202 

NORWEGIANS,  52,  197,  252,  253, 
264,  (See  also:  Norway;  Scan- 
dinavians) 


OCCUPATIONS  OF  IMMIGRANTS, 
(See:  Immigrants) 

OLD  IMMIGRATION,  (See:  Immigra- 
tion) 

OPPOSITION  TO  IMMIGRATION,  (See: 
Immigration) 


PAUPERISM,  353~358;  Decrease: 
during  period  of  greatest  im- 
migration, 353;  Industrial  in- 
validism:  p.  due  to,  357;  New 
immigration:  p.  less  frequent 
among  the,  than  among  the 
Old,  354;  New  York  City: 
lodgers  at  municipal  lodging 
houses,  by  nativity,  1908,  355; 
Racial  displacement:  p.  not 
due  to,  355,  356;  Unemploy- 
ment: a  minor  cause  of  p.,  357 

PAUPERS,  English  and  Irish:  1837- 
1845,  356;  New  York  City: 
nativity  of  p.,  in  the  past,  356, 
357 

PEARSON,  KARL,  226,  528 

PENNSYLVANIA,  6,  9,  11,  33,  100, 
119, 134, 135, 140, 141, 151,  249, 
300,  301, 319, 321, 343, 344, 371, 
372,  383,  414,  415,  419-422, 
428-431,  437,  439,  442,  445,  446, 
449,  454-456,  461,  462,  466, 
471-473, 48o,  481, 534,  535,  538- 


549,  555-557;  (See  also:  Coal 
Mines,  Bituminous;  Coal 
Mines,  Anthracite) ;  Bitumi- 
nous coal  mines:  days  worked, 
and  number  of  immigrant  min- 
ers and  laborers,  141 ;  Strikes: 

1835-1905,  344 
PHILADELPHIA,  25,  363,  372 
PITTSBURGH,  24,  306,  394,  401- 

410,  439,  454,  460,  484 
PITTSBURGH    SURVEY,    164,    306, 
395, 399-402,  406,  411-413,  454, 
460 

PLUNKETT,  HORACE,  218 
POLAND,  56,  100,  181,  182,  190 
POLES,  14,  16,  32,  54,  55,  57,  59, 
60,  75,  99,  162,  170,  171,  172, 
181, 182, 190,  228,  238,  251,  253, 
269,  328,  368,  369,  370,  378,  380, 
385,  386,  442,  456,  471;    Eng- 
lish-speaking, by  years  in  the 
U.  S.,  78 
PRATT,  EDWARD  EWING,  235-239, 

276,  341 
PREJUDICE,  against  immigrants  in 

the  past,  73 
PRICES,  control  of,  306,  510,  511 

0 

8UAINTANCE,  H.  W.,  IO3,  IO9,  IIO 
UALITY  OF  IMMIGRATION,  (See 

Immigration) 


RACE  CLASSIFICATION,  fallacy  of 
the,  adopted  by  the  Immigra- 
tion Commission,  250 

RACE  DISTINCTION,  dominant'idea 
of  the  investigation  of  the  Im- 
migration Commission,  55 

RACE  PREJUDICE,  motive  of  oppo- 
sition to  recent  immigrants,  457 

RACE  SUICIDE,  221-227;  Birth 
rate:  Commission  of  Inquiry 
into  the  Declining,  report  of, 
226-227;  decline  of,  among  the 
better- to-do,  226;  among  the 
English  aristocracy,  528;  de- 
cline of,  begins  in  1810-1830, 
2237  native,  decreasing  with 
rural  population,  224;  rise  in 
social  condition  cause  of  decline 
of,  226;  varies  inversely  with 
income,  226;  Walker's  theory 


Index 


of  the  decline  in  the  native,  221, 
528;  Immigration:  unrelated 
to,  18;  Universal:  among  social 
classes  not  affected  by  immi- 
grant competition,  226;  Wat- 
son's forecast:  of  the  population 
of  the  U.  S.,  222,  223;  World- 
wide: 224 

RACIAL  DISPLACEMENT,  (See  also: 
Racial  Stratification);  Laborers: 
none,  of  native,  by  immi- 
grants, 156,  157;  Miners:  none, 
of  native,  by  immigrants,  156, 
157;  Native  Americans:  em- 
ployed in  increased  numbers 
with  increasing  immigration 
from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe,  158,  1 60;  Negligible: 
151,  152,  176 

RACIAL  STRATIFICATION,  148-176, 
150,  151;  Massachusetts:  1900- 
f905»  J73J  Occupations:  read- 
justment on  the  scale  of,  170; 
Shifting:  of  English  and  Welsh, 
Irish  and  Germans,  from  lower 
paid  to  more  remunerative 
occupations,  165 

RAILROAD  EMPLOYEES,  wages  of, 
1891-1909,  304 

REAL  WAGES,  (See:  Wages) 

RENT,  of  native  American  wage- 
earners  in  small  towns  lower 
than  that  of  immigrant  workers 
in  large  cities,  255;  increase  of, 
502,  (See  also:  Family  Budgets) 

RIPLEY,  WILLIAM  Z.,  224 

ROBERTS,  PETER,  259,  444,  445, 
455,  456,  481 

ROLLING  MILLS,  (See  also:  Iron 
and  Steel  Industry,  Iron  and 
Steel  Workers),  Laborers:  wages 
of,  1884-1902,  398;  Rates  of 
wages:  classification  of  em- 
ployees by,  1884,  396 

Ross,  EDWARD  A.,  140 

RURAL  DEPOPULATION,  103-104; 
migration  of  native  American 
stock  to  city,  104;  relative  and 
absolute,  103 

RURAL  TERRITORY,  decrease  of  the 
population  of,  1900-1910,  104 

RUSSIA,  32,  69,  71,  146,  1 81,  349- 
351;  strikes  in,  349;  unem- 
ployment insurance,  146 

RUSSIANS,  32,  71,  75,  190,  228, 
238,  255,  260,  262,  263,  264,  267, 


268, 351, 354,  355,  357,  369,  370, 
385,  386,   388,  (See  also:  Jews) 


SABATH,  A.  J.,  347 
SAVINGS,  Of  immigrants:  disposi- 
tion of,  does  not  affect  American 
wage-earners,  271;  investments 
in  their  home  countries,  270; 
Of  wage-earners:  small  margin 
of  .income  left  for,  267 
SCANDINAVIANS,  i,  16,  178,  196- 
201,  355,  386,  548;  (See  also: 
Danes,  Norwegians,  Swedes) ; 
Competing  with  new  immigrants: 
200,  20 1 ;  Immigration  to  the 
United  States:  of  breadwinners 
highest  in  1901-1910,  196; 
1881-1910,  196;  course  of, 
turned  eastward,  197,  198;  In- 
crease: of,  in  the  U.  S.,  by 
geographic  division,  1880-1910, 
198,  199;  In  the  United  States: 
compared  with  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europeans  by  States, 
1880,  1890,  1900,  and  1910, 
545;  Occupations:  1881-1910, 
20 1 ;  Recent  immigrants:  mostly 
not  of  the  family  type,  197 
Scisco,  Louis  Dow,  73,  77 
SCOTCH,  12,  52,  75,  161,  171,  172, 
252,  253, 264, 355,  356, 414, 415, 
442,  447,  545,  546;  immigra- 
tion not  decreased,  173 
SCOTLAND,  (See:  United  Kingdom) 
SIMONS,  A.  M.,  62,  63,  115 
SLAVS,  Food:  standards  of,  com- 
pared with  United  States  navy 
rations,  257;  Organization:  ca- 
pacity for,  455,  456;  Wages:  of 
unskilled  laborers  increased, 

453,  454 

SOUTH  ITALIANS,  75,  247,  249, 
251,  (See  also:  Italians);  Food 
expenditures:  compared  with 
Americans  generally,  258;  with 
native  white  workers  in  the 
South,  258 

STANDARD  OF  LIVING,  228-273, 
(See  also:  Boarders  and  Lodgers; 
Congestion;  Family  Budgets); 
Children's  earnings:  source  of 
higher  s.  o.  1.,  maintained  by 
Americans  and  Americanized 
families,  22,  285;  Old  immigra- 


572 


Index 


tion:  standard  low,  64;  Race 
standard:  existence  of,  not 
proved,  264;  Recent  immigrants: 
standard  of,  not  inferior  to  that 
of  their  predecessors,  19 

STEAMSHIP  AGENTS,  effect  of  so- 
licitation by,  negligible,  97 

STEEL  MILLS,  (See:  Iron  and  Steel 
Workers;  Rolling  Mills) 

STEEL  WORKERS,  fatal  accidents, 
speeding  the  cause  of,  481,  (See 
also:  Iron  and  Steel  Workers; 
Rolling  Mills) 

STEERAGE  RATES,  effect  of  recent 
increase  upon  quality  of  im- 
migration, 69 

STRATIFICATION,  OCCUPATIONAL, 
caste  prejudice  against  the 
immigrant,  the  outgrowth  of, 
424 

STREIGHTOFF,  F.  N.,  246,  248, 255, 
276,  294 

STRIKE  BREAKERS,  native  Ameri- 
cans as,  345;  recent  immi- 
grants as,  346 

STRIKES,  (See  also:  Clothing  In- 
dustry; Cotton  Mills;  Strike 
Breakers;  Woolen  Mills);  An- 
thracite coal  mines:  1902,  456; 
Coal  mines:  Southern  and  East- 
ern Europeans  identified  with 
every  strike  in,  447,  448; 
Immigrants:  have  stood  by  the 
unions,  378;  Immigration:  and, 
1886-1905,  345 ;  increasing  with, 
344;  Lawrence,  Massachusetts: 
392;  Massachusetts:  1830-1905, 
344;  More  numerous:  since  1881, 
343,  344;  Pennsylvania:  1835- 
I9<>5»  344;  Russia:  349;  Woolen 
and  worsted  mills:  comparative 
statistics  of  s.  in,  392;  World 
War,  s.  during,  505 

SUMNER,  HELEN  L.,  115, 120,  230, 
241,  363,  364,  365,  (See  also: 
Women  in  Industry) 

SUNDAY  WORK,  (See:  Iron  and 
Steel  Workers) 

SUNDBARG,  GUSTAV,  2OI,  2O6,  2O7 

SUTHERLAND,  HUGH,  217,  218,  220 

SWEATSHOPS,  Irish,  in  the  'sp's, 
364;  older  than  immigration, 
362 

SWEDEN,  16,  179,  205-209,  (See 
also:  Northern  and  Western 
Europe) ;  Emigration:  from  cities 


and  rural  districts,  1881-1907, 
206;  by  destination,  1861-1908, 
205;  Immigration:  to,  206;  1881- 
1908,  207;  Recent  industrial 
development:  207;  Rural  emi- 
gration: decline  of,  due  to  small 
demand  for  farm  help  in  the 
U.  S.,  205,  206 

SWEDES,  52,  75,  79,  161,  170-172, 
197,  255,  262,  267,  268,  328, 
(See also:  Scandinavians;  North- 
ern and  Western  Europe) 


TENEMENT  HOUSES,  (See  also: 
Congestion;  Home  Ownership; 
Housing  Conditions);  One-fam- 
ily residence:  made  over  into, 
229;  Past  and  present:  in  Bos- 
ton, 241 ;  Unsanitary  conditions: 
in  the  old  Irish  and  German  col- 
onies of  New  York  City,  232 

TEXTILE  MILLS,  percentage  of 
immigrants  from  Southern  and 
Eastern  Europe  employed, 
1880-1900,  379 

TRACTABILITY,  of  old  and  new 
immigrants,  346 

TRADE-UNIONS,  (See  also:  Labor 
Organizations) ;  mostly  confined 
to  skilled  occupations,  346,  377 

TRZCINSKI,  J.,  181,  191 

TWELVE-HOUR  DAY,  (See:  Iron  and 
Steel  Workers) 


UNDESIRABLE  IMMIGRATION,  defi- 
nitions of,  41 

UNEMPLOYMENT,  114-147;  Aus- 
tralia: 145;  Bituminous  coal 
miners:  132;  collated  with  vari- 
ation of  the  percentage  of  for- 
eign-born miners,  134;  Causes: 
4,  114-125;  Coal  mines:  part 
time  employment  in  lieu  of  u., 
434;  Cotton  mills:  132;  Cyclical 
variations:  1888-1908,  in  Mas- 
sachusetts, 138;  Factory  workers: 
u^_  among,  and  immigration, 
Massachusetts,  139;  Foreign- 
born:  variation  of  the  percentage 
of,  collated  with  u.,  by  areas, 
130,131;  by  geographical  divi- 
sions, 128;  in  inverse  ratio  to  u., 


Index 


573 


129;  Immigration:  and  u.,  125- 
147,  432,  433,  434;  not  a  con- 
tributory cause  of,  145;  varies 
inversely  with,  5;  Labor  reserve: 
123,  125;  Manufactures:  aver- 
age number  of  male  wage- 
earners  employed,  by  months, 
118;  variations  by  States,  129; 
Measure:  of,  121,  125;  Monthly 
variations:  in  the  State  of  New 
York,  1902-1909,  125;  1916- 
1918,  558:  Native:  and  foreign- 
born  workmen  equally  affected 
by,  126;  Occupational  varia- 
tions: 131;  collated  with  per 
cent  of  foreign-born,  133,  508; 
Restriction  of  immigration:  no 
relief  for  u.,  35,  488,  489; 
Remedy:  146;  Seasonal  varia- 
tions: 115;  Unskilled  laborers: 
132;  Working  days:  number  of, 
in  New  York,  1897-1908,  142, 
143 ;  in  Pennsylvania  coal  mines, 
1901-1909,  140 

UNITED  KINGDOM,  178,  209-215, 
520-522,  (See  also:  Ireland; 
Northern  and  Western  Europe) ; 
Emigration  by  destination:  gross, 
1840-1909,  212,  546;  net,  1895- 
1909,  213,  214;  Immigration: 
to  the  U.  S.,  from,  1890-1909, 
not  below  normal,  213 

UNITED  MINE  WORKERS,  (See  also: 
Coal  Miners;  Labor  Organiza- 
tions); growth  of,  447;  wage 
conferences  with  mine  operators 
in  the  bituminous  coal  fields, 

T  439,  450 

UNSKILLED  LABORERS,  (See  also: 
Agriculture;  Family  Budgets; 
Hours  of  Labor;  Housing  Con- 
ditions; Illiteracy;  Iron  and 
Steel  Workers;  Labor  Organiza- 
tions; Occupations  of  Immi- 
grants; Racial  Displacement; 
Rolling  Mills;  Slavs;  Unem- 
ployment; Woolen  and  Worsted 
Mills);  Craft  unions:  barred 
from,  346;  interests  conflicting 
with,  348;  Displacement:  of 
native,  by  immigrants,  none, 
J56»  J57;  Increase:  of  the 
number  of,  by  race  and  nativity, 
1890-1900,  156;  Iron  and  steel 
mills:  wages  rising,  397;  Pre- 
dominant among  the  immigrants: 


68;  economic  reason  for,  19; 
Rolling  mills:  wages  in  1884- 
1902,  398 ;  Slav:  food  standards, 
259;  Unemployed:  and  per  cent 
foreign-born,  136,  538;  Wages: 
in  agriculture  and  other  pur- 
suits, in;  in  the  past,  295 
UNSKILLED  WORKERS,  (See:  Un- 
skilled Laborers) 

W 

WAGE-EARNERS,  in  manufactures, 
1879-1909,  151 

WAGES,  284-310,  (See  also:  Coal 
Miners;  Coal  Mines;  Conges- 
tion; Cotton  Mills;  Iron  and 
Steel  Workers;  Wages  and  the 
Cost  of  Living;  Woolen  and 
Worsted  Mills) ',  Advancing:  more 
slowly  than  the  cost  of  living, 
26;  with  the  employment  of 
large  numbers  of  immigrants, 
24;  Agricultural  laborers:  com- 
pared with  other  unskilled,  no, 
in;  Building  trades,  521;  Cler- 
ical help:  w.  of,  low,  304;  Coal 
mines:  305;  Cotton  mills:  1875- 
1908,  375,  376;  upward  move- 
ment of  w.  since  period  of  New 
Immigration,  375;  Country  com- 
petition: daughters  of  American 
farmers  working  for  less  than 
the  cost  of  living,  365;  native 
Americans  undercut  wages  of 
immigrants,  298;  Difference:  in, 
due  to  grade  of  service  not  to 
country  of  birth,  284;  not  de- 
termined by  distinction  of  race, 
288,  289;  Earnings:  annual,  of 
male  and  female  employees  in 
manufactures,  and  proportion 
of  foreign-born,  in  principal 
States,  300,  301;  variation  by 
States,  299;  Immigrants:  do  not 
undercut  w.,  23,  378;  female, 
earnings  of,  higher  than  those  of 
native  Americans,  370;  re- 
cently landed,  not  engaged  at 
less  than  the  prevailing  rates, 
285;  Increase:  actual,  result  of 
industrial  expansion,  302;  hy- 
pothetical, without  immigration 
from  Southern  and  Eastern 
Europe,  306;  Laborers:  in  the 
'40*5, 295 ;  in  rolling  mills,  1 884- 


574 


Index 


1902,  398;  Large  and  small 
cities:  comparative  w.  in,  299; 
Older  employees:  w.  of,  kept  up 
by  immigration  from  Southern 
and  Eastern  Europe,  309;  Past: 
real  w.  of  sewing-women  lower 
than  to-day,  364,  365;  Purchas- 
ing power,  of,  during  the  war, 
500-504;  Railroad  employees: 
303;  Relation  of  rent:  to,  250; 
Scarcity  of  labor:  effect  of,  489, 
521;  Southern  white  competition: 
tends  to  keep  down  the  w.  of 
immigrants  in  the  North,  383; 
Statistics:  defects  of  w.,  293; 
Steel  mills:  305;  in  1880-1908, 
553;  Urban  and  rural  manufac- 
tures: 298;  Worsted  mills:  at 
Lawrence,  w.  of  skilled  and 
unskilled  operatives  in,  1889- 

1909,  389 

WAGES  AND  THE  COST  OF  LIVING, 
in  Massachusetts,  1800,  1830 
and  1860,  295,  296;  during  the 
Civil  War,  307,  308;  in  the 
'jo's,  295;  in  the  '8o's,  297; 
during  the  World  War,  500- 

504 

WALES,  (See:  United  Kingdom) 

WALKER,  FRANCIS  A.,  18,  61,  64, 
65,  221-223,  251 

WARNE,  FRANK  JULIAN,  447,  453 

WATSON,  ELKANAH,  222,  223 

WELSH,  12,  13,  52,  75,  161,  252, 
(See  also:  English  and  Welsh) 

WEYL,  WALTER  E.,  46 

WILLCOX,  WALTER  F.,  223,  224 

WILLIAMS,  WILLIAM,  69 

WILLIS,  H.  PARKER,  51 

WOMEN  IN  INDUSTRY,  107,  115, 
120, 230, 241,  312,  313,  345,  363, 
508,  (See  also:  Sweatshops; 
Wages) 

WOOLEN  AND  WORSTED  MILLS, 
384-393;  Americans  of  native 
stock:  coming  back  to,  since 
arrival  of  new  immigrants,  387; 
not  forced  out  by  recent  im- 
migrants, 385;  number  of, 
employed  at  Lawrence,  1900- 


387;  Recent  immigrants: 
strike  record  of,  392;  Strikes: 
comparative  statistics  of,  392; 
Wages:  at  Lawrence,  1889-1909, 
389;  stationary  prior  to  the 
New  Immigration,  increasing 
since,  388 ;  of  unskilled  laborers 
increased  at  higher  rate  than 
those  of  skilled  operatives,  388, 

389 

WORK  ACCIDENTS,  458-486,  (See 
also:  Fatal  Accident  Rate; 
Fatal  Accidents);  Coal  mines: 
Americans,  compared  with  Irish, 
57;  carelessness  of  mine  man- 
agers, 465;  cause  of,  competi- 
tion among  coal  operators,  29, 
467,  468;  increasing  with  prog- 
ress in  engineering,  466;  Irish, 
compared  with  Americans,  57; 
Lithuanians,  compared  with 
Poles,  55;  opinions  of  experts 
on  the  causes  of,  462;  Poles, 
compared  with  Lithuanians,  55; 
preventable  by  legislation  and 
efficient  inspection,  468,  469; 
prevention  of,  expensive,  464; 
Railroads:  compared  with  coal 
mines,  484;  Responsibility:  for, 
shifted  to  recent  immigrants, 
458,  459 

WORKING  DAYS,  average  number, 
per  man  increased  with  recent 
immigration,  436,  437 

WORLD  WAR,  lessons  of,  493-511; 
Child  labor:  increase  of,  508,  509; 
Collective  bargaining:  505;  Con- 
trpct  laborers:  498-499,  530; 
Emigration:  net,  498;  Immigra- 
tion and  emigration:  558 ;  Strikes: 
505;  Wages  and  the  cost  of  liv- 
ing: 500-504;  Women  in  indus- 
try: 508 

WORSTED  MILLS,  (See:  Woolen 
and  Worsted  Mills) 


ZAHN,  FRIEDRICH,  180,  183,  185, 
186,  189-191 


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